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It’s a wonderful spring day, not a single cloud in the sky and the temperature warmer than usual for Toronto’s April. He could almost get used to living there, Javi thinks from the seat of his car, driving lazily to the rink. He stops at a red light, tapping mindlessly on the steering wheel to the beat of the song coming from the radio. No need to run and break several dozens of traffic rules today, he’s early for once, and it all really feels like some kind of miracle.
The traffic lights turn green, and he makes the engine purr softly as he calmly resumes his journey to work, when he hears something pop beside him and a second later he’s screeching loudly, the car coming to a sudden halt when he smashes his right foot on the brake.
A transparent, translucent version of his boyfriend has just materialized on the passenger seat, sitting on it but not really, more kind of floating over it. He looks like a ghost, the ones from the movies, the ones you can see through, and Javier feels frozen.
The thing looks at him calmly, its gaze exactly like Yuzu’s, and then raises its eyebrows, exactly like Yuzu usually does.
“You stopped in the middle of the street”, is everything it says.
Fuck, that’s right, Javi thinks, and for a moment his mind goes back to functioning normally, just for the time necessary to pull his car out of the way, before becoming worryingly blank again. He turns to the ghost, because yes, he’s decided it’s a ghost, and blinks, waiting for it to do something. You don’t pop in someone’s car just for nothing, it will surely have something very important to tell him.
But it just smiles at him, and seems to be in no rush to tell him what brought it there.
“There was no need to stop driving, I’m going to the rink too”.
“But I left you at home having breakfast”, Javier says matter-of-factly. It’s the thing that unsettles him the most, actually. Yuzuru is well and alive at home, he shouldn’t be going around in ghost form. Oh shit, is he well and alive? He feels panic mounting, and it must show, because the ghost’s expression warms and it finally answers.
“Yes don’t worry, he’s alright. He’ll come along in a bit. I’m just a messenger. I have to ask you something”.
Javi doesn’t like one bit his devilish expression, or better that expression of Yuzu so innocent that Javi has by now understood means absolute trouble.
He restarts the car, just because for some reason he feels calmer now, and waits for ghost Yuzu to explain.
“You have to help me out. I have to practice quint lutz today, and I need someone to hold the harness for me”.
Javier screeches again. What the fuck. Where has the quintuple lutz come from, he’s never even heard of it, and now he’s here being asked to be complicit of that madness. He’s not even the harness guy, he’s just used it once for a couple of juniors, and he has no idea of what’s going on. He turns to the ghost, and he sees his face is dead serious. As if it was a normal and reasonable request.
“Absolutely not me! You won’t do that at all! I’m telling you right now, I’m not going to watch you blowing your ankles to pieces”.
He sees the ghost shaking his head in his peripheral vision, while his eyes are still busy scanning the road ahead of him. This conversation is the strangest experience ever, but he just can’t bring himself to really react.
“It was not a request. I was just telling you in advance what you’ll need to do”.
“But why would you want to try that? Do you have a death wish? You don’t need a quint lutz!”.
The ghost’s face turns sombre as he nods. “I do. Nathan has jumped it”.
“What? What are you even saying, Nathan hasn’t even jumped a quad axel yet!”.
“He jumped a quint lutz. I need to do that too. Look”, the ghost answers, and he produces a phone out of the pocket of his trousers, a phone as translucent as him, but a phone nonetheless, and Javi is even more baffled if possible.
The ghost opens Instagram, a very translucent and wobbly Instagram, and Javier vaguely wonders if ghosts’ Instagram is the same one humans use. He puts the phone under his nose, for him to see playing a video of a ghostly Nathan jumping what undoubtedly looks like a quintuple lutz. He swallows, and ghost Yuzu tucks his ghost phone back into his pocket.
Something snaps inside Javi at that, and he finally decides it’s all too much. He pulls on the brakes, determined to put an end to this nonsense and go back to his perfect day, but realizes with horror that the car no longer responds to his commands. He lets go of the steering wheel, and it turns right on its own will, making its way to the rink without needing his guidance. He starts really panicking now, while the ghost stays infuriatingly composed beside him. This surely is his doing, Javi thinks furiously, and tries to open his car door, without caring for the vehicle still moving, but that too goes to no avail, as he finds it locked. He turns to ghost Yuzuru, out of his mind, and starts screaming.
“Let me out! Let me the fuck out!”.
The ghost doesn’t lose his chill, just shaking his head seriously. “No. You need to help with quint lutz”.
The car is still proceeding steadily towards the rink, and Javi doesn’t find anything better to do than starting thrashing madly in his seat, hoping somehow to break the spell and bring everything back to normal.
He moves his head so abruptly that it hits the car window, which is strangely soft, and Javi starts feeling his legs tangled weirdly, in something just a second ago wasn’t there. He feels a hand on his forehead, and when he thrashes wildly in response to the unexpected contact his elbow hits the window again, and this time it actually yelps.
Wait, what?
He opens his eyes as soon as he realizes he was keeping them closed, only to find himself in his bed, tangled in the sheets like a salmon in a fishnet and drenched in sweat, a concerned Yuzuru looking down at him from where he’s sitting next to him. He looks like a solid, real, fleshy human being, Javier notices with unspeakable relief, and he feels able to breath for the first time in hours.
“Bad dream?”, he asks with a soft smile, and Javi nods, swallowing thickly through a throat as dry as a desert.
Yuzu lies down next to him, enveloping his body in his arms, and presses a kiss to his hair. “Better now?”.
“Yes, definitely”. Javi finally feels himself smiling, and allows himself to melt against Yuzu’s warmth.
“Well, good”, Yuzuru goes on, “because I have to ask you something”.
Javi’s blood stops rushing in his veins in a fraction of a second, frozen in place by an overwhelming wave of terror that sweeps his whole body, making his throat clench when he looks up at his boyfriend’s face and finds in his eyes the same sparkly mischievous glint that he had seen on the ghost’s. He is sure his heart is very close to jumping out of his mouth, with how much he feels it beating wildly high in his pulse point, but he exhales slowly, trying to get back control.
“What?”.
Yuzu’s smile turns almost sheepish, and he fiddles with a corner of the blanket as he chews on the inside of his cheek. Oh god, Javi thinks. This is not turning out good, not good at all.
“Uhm, I just wanted to ask you, if maybe… if maybe, since you know, Brian has forbidden Michael to help me jumping quints with the harness, maybe… youcouldhelpmepracticeabitofquintsalchow?”.
The end of the sentence is so rushed Javi is not sure he heard it right, but the word salchow keeps ringing in his head, and he suddenly feels his head so light he might start floating at any point. He bursts out laughing.
“A salchow? You want to jump a bit of salchow?”.
Yuzuru looks taken aback by his reaction, and he just nods his head warily.
But he’s greeted by nothing else than a huge smile in return, and Javi throws his arms around his body, dragging him down onto the bed and snuggling him to half-death against his chest.
“Sure we can”, he answers. “That’s amazing love, a quint salchow sounds fantastic. I’m so proud of you”, he announces brightly, smooching Yuzu’s cheek affectionately and messily.
Yuzuru is at this point absolutely shocked by his boyfriend’s behavior, but he surely doesn’t question it, not when he’s so incredibly compliant towards his crazy ideas he usually tells him off for.
“Yes? You help me?”, he asks, just to be sure, with an incredulous tiny smile on his lips.
“I help you”, Javi confirms, before rolling them over and pulling Yuzu on top of him, his head resting on his chest.
“A quint sal, a quint salchow, so good…”, Javi keeps murmuring to himself in a litany, a relieved note in his voice, while shaking his head fondly and stroking rhythmically Yuzu’s hair.
Yuzuru just lays there, on top of him, vaguely questioning his sanity, happy like a kid who’s been promised a trip to Disneyland, enjoying Javi’s loving touches and starting to gather in his head all the images and tips for a perfect quintuple salchow.