Chapter Text
It started when they were young.
JJ was standing at the end of his driveway in his superman pajamas, his small feet bare. His father had sent him to put out the trash cans for the morning and he’d just gotten to the curb when he saw the light. Then there he was, only six years old. He sped past JJ’s house, the headlight on his bike and the reflectors on the spokes of his wheels glowing embers.
Then he stopped all of a sudden. He clutched his breaks and stuck out his foot. JJ noticed his shoes were too big.
The boy on the bike whipped his head back to stare at him in the driveway, his pale blonde hair looking blue under the light of the moon and the shadow of the street lamps. He threw an accusatory glance and looked awfully offended for someone who was riding their bike past curfew. He looked like he was about to ask JJ what he was looking at, but somehow Jean found his voice first.
“What are you doing?”
It seemed obvious enough.
“What does it look like?”
Jean shrugged, “It’s nighttime, though. Where’s your mom?”
The little boy didn’t answer him. He just looked back down at his handlebars, toying with the white tassels that sprung out of the ends. When JJ walked up the sidewalk to stand beside him, he didn’t flinch. He just looked up quickly, then away.
“What do you want?”
JJ could have asked his name, but he already knew it. His last name, anyway. His parents were always talking about the Plisetskys that had moved down the street. They talked in French and in whispers, as if JJ wouldn’t understand just because they used some of the words he hadn’t learned yet and a quieter tone. He figured the little boy must belong to them, one of five siblings. He had even more than Jean, so lucky.
Instead, he pointed to the training wheels at the back of the bike. They were worn-down, barely touching the ground. He didn’t need them anymore.
“Do you want me to take those off?”
The little boy finally looked up at him then, big green eyes and a hesitant smile with missing front teeth.
“Okay,” he nodded.
He got off the bike and the walked back to Jean’s house, bringing the bike into the garage. It only took a minute for Jean to unscrew the bolts, putting them back into his daddy’s workbench just as he’d been taught. He put the training wheels in a drawer too, just in case the boy needed them back later.
“Thanks,” he muttered when Jean was done, hopping back onto the seat. He was about to take off into the night again.
“Wait,” JJ pleaded, his fingers tugging at the hem of his pajama top. He’d put the screwdriver in his shirt pocket, the letters JJL embroidered there in red thread. “What’s your name?”
The boy looked back at him again, his pink tongue peeping out through his missing front teeth in the yellow garage light.
“Yuri Plisetsky,” He answered, a little bit of a lisp in his soft voice. He didn’t really know how to say his last name, but he tried. “What’s yours?”
Jean’s mom had taught him never to tell his name to strangers, but Yuri wasn’t really a stranger. He was just a little kid.
“Jean-Jacques Leroy,” He stated proudly, sticking out his chest just like superman did in the cartoons. It made Yuri laugh, and he looked up at heaven and back again.
Jean heard someone coming down the stairs inside the house.
“I’ll see you at school, Yuri Plisetsky.”
At that, Yuri’s smile faded slightly. He just nodded, his hair brushing the tops of his ears. Then he turned back and pushed the pedals with his too-big shoes. He rode easily, as if there had never been training wheels there at all.
By the time Jean’s father came out to check on him, he found his son standing still in the garage with a screwdriver in his front chest pocket, staring out into the night.
JJ learned quickly.
He learned that reading was really, really hard. School was hard every day, because no matter how hard he tried he always seemed to get that look from his teachers. He’d disappointed them again. Sometimes they sent notes home to his mom and dad. He hid them in the drawer in his daddy’s workbench, right next to Yuri’s training wheels.
He also learned more things about Yuri. He found out Yuri was six and a half , because he mentioned it every chance he got. He found out Yuri liked the blue flavor of pop icies the best, and he thought batman was way cooler than superman (he was wrong about that, but Jean let it go because Yuri was still little). He learned Yuri didn’t go to the same school that Jean did. It wasn’t fair, he didn’t even have to wear the stupid uniforms or go to church every morning. He learned that Yuri didn’t even know any of his prayers. That was okay though, because he was still little. It took JJ a long time to learn all his prayers.
He learned not to ask Yuri why he didn’t want to go home at night.
He learned to never ask about Yuri’s mom, not ever. His own mother had a few questions.
“Are you sure you want to play with Yuri? He’s. . . He’s a lot smaller than you, JJ.”
“Yeah Mommy,” He said, sure as the wind. Once Jean set his mind to something, there was nothing to stop it from lingering there. Especially special things.
And Yuri Plisetsky was surely something special.
“He’s my best friend.”