Chapter Text

That sly, conniving woman. Giving him that kind of an evil present for Christmas. He might have as well received a slap in the face and it would make him much happier. 

What so great about ice skating anyway. Tina only does it because her super-active girlfriend used to be a hockey player and now she's taking her on romantic dates to the freezer. She bragged to him how good she’s got and how much fun it would be if only he joined them sometimes. She knows that this is the only way he would even consider going. 

All the excuses have gotten stolen from him and Gavin has no choice but to sharpen his blades and break his spine. He hates loving that woman. It’s more hassle than what he bargained for. 

He does it for her, no other reason. Remembering the many times Tina saved him when he felt like there was no tomorrow, when today tried to snatch his soul away. When he thought that the only pleasure he could ever know would be born from alcohol and blood. She was his life-saver and he would become her anchor. They worked well this way. Until she found someone she could love beyond the feeble relationship made out of necessity for survival. That’s when everything in his world started crashing down again. The ground under his feet becoming cold and slippery. 

“Get your lazy ass up, Gav. And stop sulking.” Three times he’s fallen already in the ten minutes of ice-suffering he has been forced to endure. Tina offered to kindly hold his hand but he refused, feeling like a dependant child. Very uncool . She should be gracing the ice with her girlfriend who is speeding by so fast he could only see a purple blur. 

They’re wearing matching jackets, too. He may just throw up soon. If not from the icky lovey-doviness then from the onslaught of strangers minding their own business, not noticing his struggles. Maybe it’s because of the gaudy scowl he has on. 

Meeting someone, my ass. Tina attempted to coax him in that manner but he knows better. It’s too late for him, all his hopes for a non-dreadful future are rotting in the gutter somewhere. He would end up alone and regretful, that is the fate he made his peace with. So why is his chest getting tight, why does it sting seeing the random couples holding hands and laughing. He shouldn't have come.  

They’re all looking at him like he’s about to get violently murdered. Okay, so not everybody, but this one tall, handsome guy who seems to be best friends with the ice. The way he skates is just something else, it’s almost like he’s dancing. Gavin intensifies his hostile expression as to show that he would not be intimidated by some pretty skater who is making his way to him. Oh god , he has no chance of escaping, because no matter how hard he tries his feet just won’t listen. He loses his balance, ending up splattered on the icy ground again. This will be his death, surely. His entire shitty life leading up to this moment. He deserves it, should have been a better person. 

It’s freezing and his whole body is an aching mess. He’s too old for this, or so his bones are telling him. Just let him lie there, he’s too tired to go anywhere, to stand up. 

There are two cold hands, trying to lift him up, he thinks. 

Must be Tina or her other half. 

It’s not. 

⛸️

He has to remind himself why he came here over and over again until the words lose all meaning and his mind becomes blank. 

It’s been a year. One agonizingly long year of pain and healing. He considered quitting, at one point, but the love he has for the feeling of being free the only way he knows how was stronger than the weakness his self-doubt cooked up. 

And so he’s here now - Connor Anderson, one of America’s top figure skaters, cowering at the benches.

One single slip-up and his name faded away, leaving behind a trace of past endeavors that somehow lead him to this moment. It’s not that he’s afraid, being here in a new city, unrecognized by anyone. It’s more about losing faith in himself, in his abilities that once brought him more attention and admiration than he knew what to do with. 

He’s well aware that he still has it in, the “talent”. He was told so many times that he’s got one, but only he knows that isn’t quite the truth. Hard work and passion, that is what pushed him to success. And his strict coach. He sacrificed most of his childhood learning how to dance on ice, but he doesn't regret a single minute of it. He just wishes it could have lasted a little longer, his waking dream, the sheen being of being the spotlight, living for something he truly loved, something he was born to do. 

His career was over, there was no denying it. But no one can take ice skating away from him. He is drawn to it. No matter where he is, it will always find him. 

The rink is bursting at the seams with people enthusiastically sliding away, just enjoying their free time. All but one raggedy individual, who is keen on making the ice his enemy. Never letting go of the barrier, barely moving at all. And now he’s getting closely acquainted with the cold surface itself. 

Connor has no choice but to pity that guy. He missed about more than thirty years of practice, or that’s how old he looks. Coming on forty, is his guess. 

Somehow, this person’s fight with his feet gives him some sort of courage or maybe it's hope. 

This time he’s here only for his own sake and nothing is going to hurt him . 

So he makes that one, most important step to finally be in the place he feels most at home. 

 He can’t say that he isn’t terrified to death now, that he trusts his feet completely and is ready to fly. Quite the opposite, really. Connor is left petrified, the ice turning into liquid, swallowing him whole. His body won’t move. He should have been prepared for this scenario. Or he could just delete it entirely. He’s stronger than his fears, after all. That was the encouragement his therapist feeds him every week, anyway. 

But he believes it, for better or worse. So he closes his eyes and slides his left foot forwards and lets the other one follow. He hasn’t forgotten. He can do this. His eyes are becoming wet and he has to open them so he won’t kill someone with the speed he already achieved. 

He’s home.  Properly alive for the first time this year. He thinks he can even start liking the obnoxious pop music blasting from the speakers above the rink. 

It feels wrong keeping this joy all for himself though. Not when he knows there’s a person having an awful time on the ice just a few feet away. 

⛸️

“Someone could slice you in half if you stay lying down like that.” 

Smartass.  

Okay, so maybe the guy has the voice of a heavenly angel but that doesn’t mean… He takes one look at the stranger’s face and his heart stops. Or maybe it was his brain that took a break from functioning. 

Was the man made in Gavin’s personal dream factory just so that he can get tortured? Must have been so, because he could lose himself staring into those endless soft eyes, or at those perfect lips, or at.. 

“Are you okay? Your face is awfully red.” 

Oh shit , he’s being creepy now. Time for some words, if his frozen brain kindly allows. 

“‘am fine. Just these things don’t fucking like me.” He furiously waves as his skates-clad feet and is about to fall down again, when the handsome stranger’s hold saves him. 

“Your first time I presume?”
He is given a warm smile, the like that is reserved for nice or pretty people, one that no one thinks about sharing with Gavin “sewer rat” Reed. 

So he scowls in retaliation. 

“Yeah, well. Wasn’t my idea though.” He scans the crowded rink for two purple idiots when he sees Tina on the other side, giving him a thumbs up like the devil she is. 

“I see.” The taller man doesn’t spot her and he thanks his skimpy luck for that too. He wants to run, well, skate away right at this moment but something other than his inability to do so prevents him from that. He doesn’t mind this encounter. 

“My name is Connor, I’m…,” the stranger - no, Connor cuts himself off, looking pensive. 

“What’s uh.. What’s your name?” 

Why the fuck is Connor maintaing direct eye contact with him all the time. It is hard to look away, like he has Gavin under a spell or something. 

Normally, he would tell the other person to fuck off and to keep minding their own business, but for some mysterious reason he’s happy to tell him all that he allows himselfs to. Maybe he’s more touched-starved than he realized. The couple of instances Connor’s hand met his body awoke something warm inside his chest and that is something he’s unable to deny himself. 

“Gavin. My name is Gavin.”

He loathes how desperate he is right now. It’s as if his thirsty body is taking control over all of his actions. He even attempts a smile. Disgusting . 

“Well then, Gavin, let’s skate.” Connor takes his steady hand in Gavin’s trembling one and looks at him for permission or any other kind of reaction. All that Gavin can input from this is Connor’s hand is not that larger than his but it’s much warmer and softer. His thoughts are going dangerous places so he wills his face to pale itself, most likely failing horribly. 

“Hey, it’s okay. This is meant to be fun.” Yes, it’s so much fun imagining placing his grabby hands on Connor’s squishable cheeks or shutting him up by bringing his lips up to his and god he has to turn his horny brain off before it gets him in trouble. 

“I won’t let you fall.”
He doubts that very much. 

---

Gavins holds on for dear life when Connor decides it would be a swell idea to take him away from the barrier, his only safe place in this mad refrigerator. He is not afraid, it’s just that they’re moving too fast. His feet haven’t dared to get unstuck from each other since they’ve started. Connor basically pulls him like he’s nothing but an ordinary sleigh. He hates how it makes him feel. Embarrassed, mostly. 

“Try pushing one of your feet forward.” It’s easy for Connor to say, since he acts like he was born with ice-skates on. Must be nice, not to be a human failure. Not that Gavin is one, but sometimes it seems to him like he might not be far from that title. 

He’s too out of his element to argue so he does as he’s asked to. Okay, that must look pathetic. He manages to gain the tiniest amount of speed on his own and would have had enough had it not been for the prettiest man in the room blessing him with words of praise. 

“See? It’s not that difficult. Now for the other one.” 

After some time and about more rounds than he can count he’s able to stand on his own without tumbling down and “skate” next to Connor. It’s more an awkward feet shuffle than anything resembling what everyone else passing them by does. Even the snivelling toddlers look more convincing as skaters than Gavin. 

“No one can do the axel their first hour in skates, Gavin. It will take some time before you get used to this. But you can’t go anywhere but up from here.” 

He has no idea about half the things Connor is talking about, all he can focus on is the way his names sounds spoken through those perfect lips. 

He's afraid to face what comes after this ends. He’d rather fall ten more times over than having to face the consequences of allowing himself to be treated this kindly. What is he supposed to do with this experience? Throw it away, forget that it ever happened? Agonize over all that could never be? He wants to punch someone, probably himself. 

His thoughts get interrupted by the rumbling voice coming out from the intercom above them. Their time on ice is over.

There aren’t that many people with them in the arena anymore. It feels lonely, but for a completely unrelated reason. 

Connor gracefully turns to face him directly. He was so glad that he didn’t have to look at that stupidly beautiful man during their practice. Now it just hits him in his heart and somewhere else, maybe. 

“See you next time, then? I’ll make you into a proper skater yet.” He is gifted with a soft smile that makes him agree with what Connor proposed. 

Before he can catch up with what the fuck is going on he’s sitting on a bench somewhere warmer, breathless and blushing. 

He didn’t even get the chance to ask him.. well almost anything. 

Next time , then.  

Tina won’t ever let him live it down. 

⛸️

He decides to take a proper look at the scar for the first time since he got it. To make sure it’s actually there, that it hasn’t magically healed since the time it went silent, but also because he gained some new, untapped sense of confidence. It feels like he is being handed a helping hand in return as he slowly pulls down the well-worn pants. Except the room is very dim and he can barely see anything when he looks down at his bare leg. Maybe he chooses not to because when he hears his name being called from somewhere inside the house he is relieved. Could be that the time is not right, not now. Some day. 

“God fucking dammit, Connor! You’ve been stuck there for almost an hour and I’m about to piss myself!” 

The grumbly voice reminds him that he selfishly locked himself in the bathroom just to have some privacy because that is the rarest commodity in his life right now. He puts the pants back on, promptly ignoring the shame that manages to sneak through his defenses and opens the door behind which awaits an imposing bear-like human. 

His father. He doesn’t really like to be called that anymore, though. Connor has been reassured plenty of times that the fact that they are not blood-related has nothing to do with that. And on good days, he almost believes it. 

“Sorry, Hank.” Connor lends him a smile that is asking whether it is the bad mood that is frowning at him or the man himself. 

It’s not that he feels unwelcomed here, in the one-bedroom house that is already too small for the towering man that Hank is and for his equally sizable St Bernard friend. It was his father himself that had suggested he comes living with him after everything in his world started crumbling to pieces. He did specifically say “before you get back on your feet” though, and Connor was afraid it wasn’t just because it’s a phrase people often use in these kinds of situations. He has been able to use his feet just fine for some time now, and for more than walking. Everything other than that is the problematic part. 

He doesn’t like living here, sleeping on the couch like a drifter, having to depend on someone else for the smallest amount of stability in life. It feels like he’s about to suffocate everytime he has to search for words just to put an end to the uncomfortable silence that tends to form between them. He feels like he’s in a way of Hank’s self-destructive life-style, because he can’t help himself when he surreptitiously tries to nudge his everyday habits the healthier way. And it hurts him, having to exist like that day after day. Like a dead-weight dropped on an old man’s shoulders. 

But it’s not all bad, either. He likes Sumo - that’s the name Hank’s dog came with - taking the drooly canine for walks, rubbing his soft fur every day after he wakes up, nuzzling his perpetually sad face, these moments are something Connor doesn’t regret.

Then he catches one glimpse of the bag in which he keeps his precious skates and all the good that has been inside of him turns into a mass of sorrow, grief for all that he’s lost. He could have just gotten rid of them or hidden them somewhere where they wouldn’t haunt him like that but that was just another one of his lies. It was physically impossible for him to do so. Because every time he even thought of it, of giving up the last remnants of the only time in his life that truly mattered, his stomach lurched and he couldn’t stop himself from emptying it whole. 

Until one day he couldn’t hold it inside of him anymore. The voice begging him to put them on again got so loud it wouldn’t fit into a headache.
Doing that could have been the second hardest thing in his life and it probably really was but it was alleviated by the fumbling man that caught Connor’s eye the second he saw how he struggled with the ice. The fight wasn’t the same as his one, but it still resonated. 

He received so much more than just courage born of pity. The man, Gavin, managed to give him a new perspective, and not only to ice skating.  There is something about the person that makes him redirect his thoughts towards their brief time together every so often. Something he is too afraid to delve any deeper in than he already has. It hasn’t even been a week and he feels like he can’t wait for the day when the rink opens for public again. A month ago he couldn’t picture himself ever looking forward to putting on his skates like that, in a way that wasn’t connected to fear or memories of past long lost. It was just the anticipation of having to hold onto someone while doing the one thing he used to love more than anything was a thing that made his current living situation worth enduring. It made him ache in a whole different way. 

Connor doesn’t allow himself to dream about things like that, about sharing more than a casual friendship with someone. Not anymore. It was hard enough to let go the first time, so many years ago. Part of him still carries it with him, the sorrow that comes with losing someone you entrusted your entire life to. It was too late when he realized what a mistake he’d made and it took all that was left just to refuse to get broken by it. His heart started cracking then, though. The fall has just delivered the final blow.
He always imagined having an empty space in the place where once there was love, hope and a thousand other good things. 

Now he knows that hasn’t entirely been the case. He can feel his blood flowing through there, bringing colour to his pale cheeks. It’s like getting rid of the life support he has been hooked up to and taking a breath with his own lungs for the first time in a year, if not longer. But the oxygen is too overwhelming and he doesn’t know what to do with it, if he should expel the excess one because it is simply too much to take all at once. He is certain that if he didn’t do so, it would get into his head and he would lose it in consequence. 

It’s not like he is dying, after all. Though at times it truly felt like that just might be the reason for the times when he tries to look into his future and fails. Like there is nothing for him to see, because it ends before it can truly get there. 

Having to abandon so many certainties all at once usually leads to that sort of mental weather, he is well aware. And he does try to get better, to stop fighting with each of his waking seconds. He goes to therapy and that should be enough. It would be if he believed that he is doing it in order to heal himself and not to answer to some social standards or to reassure Hank he doesn’t have to worry. It’s mainly the latter. 

“You okay?”

He doesn’t even notice the man entering the living room. He always gets carried away somewhere deep inside his mind when he overthinks like this. The surrounding worlds ceases to exist and it’s just him and the barrage of inputs that will never stop. It’s detrimental to not only his health but it’s sort of an addiction for Connor. And the high is more of a low than anything else. 

He stops absentmindedly petting Sumo and looks up from his daze. 

That there is the main cause for Connor to put himself back together, or at least pretend to.

The worry lines prominently etched between Hank’s eyebrows, the glint in his eyes telling him that he still cares, despite his personality flaws.

So he forces himself to be strong. 

So he got over himself and went to visit the rink Hank had blatantly pointed him to a few days ago. 

So he will give the old man a sincere-looking smile and say that he is indeed doing okay.

⛸️

It has been a very long three days. Gavin had a hard time living with himself, trapped inside his arguing mind. On one hand, last Saturday he had the most fun in years - without getting wasted. On the other, self-sabotaging one, he’d rather kill himself than having to google an ice rink schedule to find out when the next public session will be. Maybe that is a slight exaggeration but between this and asking Tina about it he thinks offing himself would be the easiest option. They haven’t talked properly since and not only because he’s too self-aware after what had happened there, but because their work schedules don't align. He leaves the precinct an hour before her shifts even begin. So he resorts to texting her surreal messages that even he can’t understand at times. It’s safe, comfortable and he doesn’t have to wreck his brain about it. 

The small, semi-disturbing noise that has not been bothering him till now morphs into an orchestra of mewles and scratches. He turns from the computer screen to observe the scene acting out right behind him. His psychotic feline enemy is bound on ripping his sofa to tiny little pieces from which she could make a perfect nest to contemplate her next evil plan in. He lets out a deep sigh betraying that this has not been the first time Snowflake put her claws to work. It seems impossible to think that the feral beast once was a small, helpless kitten that needed constant care and cuddles.

Gavin vacates the room because no one dare touches queen Snowflake when she’s “in the mood”, taking his laptop with him. 

His bedroom is cold and dark, tinted blue. It could be the cold lighting or the street view seeping in or it could just be the loneliness exaggerating things again. He has been feeling like that for far too long now, wasting his time lying alone in his bed and wallowing in the sadness stemming from the empty space next to him. Inside of him. 

He looks out to observe the snowflakes that are not set on making his life miserable unlike the one that has just knocked something over next door. He has seen them hundreds of times before but they never looked this beautiful. 

Next Thursday, 6 pm.

Gavin can hardly wait.