Chapter Text
There’s not a real beginning and an ending to this story, a lot of chapters are still yet to be written in the life of these two characters, so let us start this tale by its middle…or is it the end? Because…real life doesn’t really follow a straight line does it? So why should we?
Somewhere in Time
When Javier received a frantic phone call in the middle of the night from his coach, he didn’t think he was going to end up almost sleepwalking in the middle of Toronto’s streets at freaking midnight.
Maybe he was calling him because his training session was going to be canceled, maybe he was going to tell him some important news about some changes on the rule book, he definitely didn’t think that his already sore body was going to be put through the trouble of getting up, get dressed and walk to the same rink he trained at every single day, again. Brian hadn't been very specific about what the issue was, he had simply told him that “he was needed urgently at the rink”, he couldn’t fathom why on earth he could be needed at the rink at this hour, but since the very beginning he learned to blindly trust the older man and just do as he was told.
If Brian Orser told you to get up and go somewhere, you did exactly that.
Getting up wasn’t a problem, he wouldn’t be able to sleep even if he tried, but his tired muscles told another story. Thinking once again that after 7 years his coach had never given him a reason to doubt him, he just resigned himself and started to get dressed. Even Effie woke up and stared at him a sympathetic look. “Don’t patronize me” he said to the, already used to the constant craziness, cat. “I’m fully functional, it’s only midnight, this used to be pretty early for me back in my day I’ll have you know”. Effie just stared at his accusing finger and decided to just leave his owner to his problems yet again, it wasn’t worth it to lose her sleep over human affairs.
Looking himself at the mirror and finding that everything looked decent for a midnight walk down the streets of Toronto to the Cricket Club, for reasons that not even he, was aware of, Javier walked out of the apartment and followed his usual path to his everyday destination.
When he got to the familiar entrance he expected to just find the door locked as usual and was preparing himself to call his coach, to warn him about the obvious outcome, but just in case Brian had actually thought about that detail, he tried to open the cursed door and surprisingly it opened up for him. Everything inside was dark and shut down as it should be after opening hours, yet the light from the ice rink could still be seen at the end of the corridor. Willing to just get whatever this was about finished, he walked faster to the open saloon, yet as if this night could get any weirder, there was no one there.
Where on earth was the Canadian old man, that so urgently bothered him to get there as soon as he could? Once again, he found himself searching for his phone when he noticed that in the middle of the ice stood a lonely blanket of sorts.
Why would anyone put a damn blanket on the middle of the rink? And more importantly, who?
The fact that it stood in the geometrical center of the rink, should have given away the author of such charade, Javier’s curiosity won over and instead of listening to common sense, he just jumped into the ice and, trying not to break any essential bones, he strutted towards the blanket, feeling like something was missing by walking without his skates on the cool surface.
Once he got there, a note simply stated “Sit down and enjoy”.
Now was the moment he knew he had two choices, one of them was to just drop the note and leave (like a normal human being deprived of sleep as he was) or just stay and see what his idiotic training partner was planning. Yes, only his rink mate would ever manage to make Brian go to these lengths for him and keep the whole club open at this ungodly hour. Only he would be able to somehow convince the administration that he need the club open for some reason. Because, when your ice buddy is Yuzuru Hanyu, there’s little that can’t be done. and he should have figured it out the moment he entered the club, but sleep and exhaustion were clouding over any rational thoughts at the moment.
He resigned himself another sleepless night since the happenings of the last few days and just sat himself down as instructed, willing himself not to wince at the cold beneath his bottom, the Japanese skater was said to be a genius on the ice and very attentive to detail, but right now the Spaniard was doubting the younger one’s brilliance. He could only hope he wouldn’t be stuck there for longer than necessary.
Suddenly all the lights except the ones overviewing the ice shut down. And a song started to play.
There goes my heart beating
Cause you are the reason
From somewhere (Javier wasn’t in the mood to question exactly where), Yuzuru came out onto the ice wearing his favorite outfit, the so praised swan costume, honestly it was the Javier's favorite costume too, but maybe for very different reasons.
And you are the reason
That I'm still breathing
I'm hopeless now
The little shit was not oblivious to the effect that the damn costume had on him, and Javier knew it, but until now he was kind of lost at the meaning of all this big seemingly romantic gesture. He watched on as Yuzuru dropped a single Flip there, a spin on his left side, a single Salchow in front of him. At every jump he tried not to cringe on his seat…who on their right mind would skate on this condition…oh right, his boyfriend was pretty much a maniac.
And I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you
And fix what I've broken
Oh, 'cause I need you to see
That you are the reason, oh
And now everything made sense, and Javier couldn’t help but smile like an idiot. His boyfriend's flair for the dramatics was getting out of hand, but that was one of the reasons he fell in love with him, to begin with. As more jumps and spins appeared all around him, he prayed for his partner to be safe through all of them, sometimes he believed he suffered more through the younger one’s injuries than the other skater himself.
I don't wanna fight no more
I don't wanna hurt no more
I don't wanna cry no more
(Come back, I need you to hold me closer now)
Dancing through the song like one of his programs, Yuzuru managed to capture his boyfriend's full attention, making him not only see but feel the details and the emotion that he poured into every movement. He couldn’t deny that having Javier watch him skate gave him a different kind of energy than the one he loved to receive from the audience. This was their moment, there was no one else around them, and he found out that this was his favorite way of performing, in front of the only person he’d ever loved.
I'd climb every mountain
And swim every ocean
Just to be with you
And fix what I've broken
'Cause I need you to see
That you are the reason
As he finished his “program”, meticulously choreographed no doubt, he skated over to his boyfriend half wheezing and trying not to show how tired and spent he was, more on the mental side than the physical one this time. Skating for a gold medal was one thing, skating for forgiveness was another.
As Yuzuru came closer to him, he could notice the wrecked state that his small partner had yet again managed to put himself in.
“You liked?” the ever so assured of himself skater asked him, but unlike most times his head wasn’t proudly held up, he looked at his skates instead, bashful and uncertain.
“Oh, I liked it very much, but I think I didn’t get the point…what did all this mean again?”, Javier teased the boy, taking this rare chance to be the one with the upper hand.
“Serious?”, Yuzuru’s face was becoming an embarrassing shade of red, “I skate while I hurt and so late and you mock me?”
Javier wanted to fold right there and then but he figured that the increasing redness on his boyfriend's face was worth the possible punishment later on.
“Hey, you are the one that decided to be this dramatic, I would be happy with a single ‘I’m sorry’ card”, Javier said trying to reason with the younger one, “and what on earth were you thinking? Skating with your injured foot?”
“I wanted to do special and romantic!”, he was very close to stomping his feet on the ice as a spoiled child but given the south direction this whole night was taking, he opted to at least keep his dignity, “And I only did simple jumps, not even doubles or triples!”
“Special and romantic can’t mean dragging someone at midnight to an ice rink, after a grueling training session, and making my old bones sit in the freezing floor”, he wasn’t even mad, to be honest, but Yuzuru’s dramatics were going to be the end of him someday, “and I swear to God that if I saw you attempt a double jump in your condition I would throw my shoe at your face and give you a reason to get your ass on the ice, like how mine has been for the last two hours!”
“I wanted rink to be without people and the music lasts five minutes! I counted!”
“Of course, you did…and the club closes at eight o’clock every day you pumpkin head”, watching his boyfriend get increasingly miserable he relented and pulled the smaller to him, putting his arms around his waist in some kind of comfort, “Thank you Yuzu, I loved it”.
“Really?” Yuzuru, quite close to sniffing like a wounded puppy just hid his head on the taller one's neck and wait for reassurance, maybe this night wouldn’t be a total waste after all.
“Yes, really”, Javier was glad that they were alone, for he knew that Yuzuru despised the idea of showing a speck of vulnerability in front of everyone but him, and somehow that made Javier feel some kind of relief. Relief over the fact that he was perhaps a tiny bit as important to Yuzuru as he was to him, “Nobody ever skated for me you know, and now you’ve done it…twice”.
That observation only made his boyfriend try to make himself smaller on his arms as if trying to forget the past episode, which led to some serious confrontations and a lot of distress to both sides.
“Hey, it’s okay I loved both, even though this time, I kind of enjoyed the fact that I could understand the lyrics, so that’s a plus for you”.
Nothing about the incident had been joyful, but Javier believed that in order for them to move forward, things just needed to be talked over and over again, and somehow made into something less important, so that it won’t come back as a matter to be fearful of, or capable of destroying something that they had worked together to build.
Which led him to something he had hoped to postpone for the next few months, years even if his body would allow him.
But alas…life is not always fair and all you have left is the opportunity to try and make things work while trying to get yourself unscathed at the end, which usually results in someone losing far too much while the other tries to fix what has already been broken since the beginning.
Maybe they were too blind to the novelty of it all, maybe they thought it wouldn’t matter in the long run as nobody knew exactly how long these things last. They were far too old to believe in happily ever after’s, but just this time, they both wished that it would last forever for them.
“Yuzuru?”, Javier was the first to break the silence, trying to be the brave one in the relationship for the first time.
“Yes?”, Yuzuru knew that they needed to talk, they needed to sort this out once and for all.
“You know that we need to talk right? Like, really talk?” he led the younger away from the cold rink, to avoid major consequences the next day and Brian having their heads.
They found an old wood bench, where their coaches tend to sit while watching their students during the training sessions, it always seemed like the most uncomfortable thing in the world, but now neither of them cared much about it. It would still be something that Javier would remember, as silly as it sounded.
“You know what’s going to happen after the Olympics, right?” Javier started again since his partner was becoming more and more silent after the forced reality check.
“Yes, Javi retires and goes back to Spain, we talked about that, why talk again?” as expected, Yuzuru was trying to postpone this matter once again. But time was literally running out, they had no time left for wishful thinking and blind courses of action, they needed a plan, a meticulous crafted one at best, so they didn’t lose more than they were willing to.
“I will indeed retire, try to make something out of life back home, but I don’t want to do it alone”
“You know I can’t leave everything and go with Javi”, Yuzuru’s voice was edging a begging tone, and it was making Javier’s decision to start this conversation at all, start to crumble.
“I know and that’s not what I’m asking, you know that I would never demand such thing of you”, and it was the truth, he knew it wasn’t a possibility, maybe a dream for later but not now and not in the near future for sure.
“Then what are you asking me…?”, the Japanese skater was growing more and more confused, this was a subject they normally avoided, why ruin everything and bring it to life again?
“It’s something quite simple, because you know? I’ve asked that question to myself and the answer came easily because I know where you stand with me, but I never know where I stand with you”
“You know my feelings for you, you want me to say more?”, compared to Javier’s very explicit and outward demonstrations of affection, Yuzuru knew his own lacked the same passion and sometimes even seemed nonexistent, but if that was an issue he wouldn’t mind changing himself, and he was not far from pleading with Javier to just end this conversation and go back to where they were.
“No Yuzuru, I don’t want that”, as the older skater looked at expectant dark eyes, he prayed for strength for what he was about to do.
“Then what is it Javi? What do you want from me?”, he dreaded what his boyfriend could possibly ask of him, would they be able to compromise? Would it be possible for them? Was Javier tired of playing pretend in a relationship with no future? Would they be able to go back to what they were after tonight?
“Like I said, it’s quite simple, Yuzuru" he breathed in and just prayed that this wasn't the last time he would look into those eyes he loved so much and held the meaning of the world within them.
"Would you give up gold for me?”