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Ryan is going to kill his boyfriend.
The harsh winter air that’s biting at his frozen nose, the slush and falling snow he’s currently trudging through on the half-cleaned sidewalk, and the dark night sky serve to tell him that any sane person would be bundled up inside, in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate.
Ryan considers himself a sane person. Which is why that is exactly what he was going to do before Tom called him at ass o’clock (actually ten o’clock at night, but that’s late enough for a guy like Ryan), demanding to know where Jacques is. Something about needing another adequate fashion expert to settle a debate between him and Jen about the ‘most in’ pattern.
He’d called Jacques but it went to voicemail—he called him the next five times, but to no avail. That’s weird enough, Jacques is stuck to his phone; if he’s not socializing, he’s scrolling through sports replays or his previous ice skating highlights for motivation.
It’s weirder since Jacques is supposed to be resting due to an ankle injury he’d gotten a week ago the last time he was on the ice. The doctor had specifically told him to rest it up in order for it to heal quicker, but Ryan knew it was a lost cause.
Jacques gets like this. Restless, motivated to do something but unable to actually do it, restrained physically, and it frustrates him.
Not even a day after being subjected to rest, Jacques had insisted, demanded, wheedled, then practically begged to go to the gym with Ryan. Only Ryan’s mostly-strong shield against his puppy-eyes prevented him from agreeing. Still, he’d felt bad when Jacques gave a look of betrayal.
And well, Ryan gets where he’s coming from. As a part-time fitness model, he’s been the center of attention often, but he makes sure to have his limits—to not let the public affect him.
Jacques has no qualms with being the center of attention and letting it affect him.
“It makes me feel inadequate,” he confessed to Ryan one night. “I don’t like feeling never enough.”
Ryan had reassured him back then, but he knows it’s never enough for someone as hungry for validation as Jacques. He’d known it more-so as he scoured up and down his house; oftentimes since they started dating (and even a bit before), Jacques spends more time at Ryan’s place than the flat he shares with Josee.
Not this time. Nowhere at his place did Ryan see a Jacques who’s supposed to be resting.
After looking, he’d hung up in the middle of Tom’s rant about the comeback of striped trousers, worry curdling in his stomach. And it wasn’t because of Tom’s rant.
With every minute passing by and no hide nor hair of his boyfriend, the weight of dread and resignation that rested in Ryan since knowing Jacques better began to awaken.
He knows where Jacques is. He’s sure of it. It’s a niggling thought worming into his head, having known Jacques for as long as he does. But he hopes that he’s wrong. He looked all over the house and called Jacques’ number because there was no goddamn way Jacques would do something so stupid to feel adequate, but he would. He so totally would.
Ryan hates that nothing he or anyone else does will ever change that about Jacques. It’s an ingrained trait, rooted in a person surrounded by competition and fame and validation constantly, that he does it without thinking—he needs to be doing something or else he’ll fall off the top of the pyramid. He loves Jacques, really, he does; but he hates how often Jacques’ fatal flaw rears its head in such a manner that if not for Ryan or their friends, he probably would’ve worked himself to near-death by now.
“Par les dieux, he is supposed to be resting, ” Josee had all but snarled into the receiver when Ryan had called her, in hopes that maybe since he isn't with Ryan, Jacques was at his own house that he shares with her.
Her reaction further proved his theory of Jacques's potential whereabouts, only served to leave him more resigned.
“How on earth will we win any competitions if my stupid partner refuses to get healed?” she hissed. “Knowing him, he’s probably working his arse off at the lake, what an idiot!”
She let loose another slew of curses in French that made his ears feel like they were bleeding, before snapping, “bring him back at once, he’s going to get sick as well as more hurt!” as though Ryan didn’t already know that.
He didn’t tell any of that to her. He sensed the undercurrent of worry and concern, though he wouldn’t have if he isn’t spending more time with uber-competitve Josee—far worse than Jacques in his opinion, and someone who could give his ex-girlfriend, Stephanie, a run for her money—than he likes, thanks to Jacques, himself. You can’t spend that much time with your own boyfriend and not meet his ice-skating partner in the Olympics at least once.
Oh, the things he does for love.
Like leaving the comforts of his warm home to brave the bitter snowstorm and drag his obstinate boyfriend back to their sanctuary from the cold.
Ryan had bundled up to the max; fluffy hat with a puffball (Jacques had bought it for him, saying it was adorable and resembled him), woolen scarf, three layers, the snuggest pair of woolen sweatpants he could find (one of Tom’s fashion statements that he’d gifted Ryan a previous Christmas, he’s going to have to seriously thank him), and thick snow boots. Still, the second he stepped out, immediately he yearned to go back inside.
The cold is atrocious.
Only the thought of Jacques and how his stupidly stubborn self is going to get him seriously hurt or seriously sick or both propels him forward, trudging through the snow and slush, letting his nose numb from the biting wind, until the shape of the lake bordering his street comes into view.
He rounds the bend, almost slipping on some black-ice in the process (did he mention how much he hates winter?), and as he’s rightening himself, he sees his dumbass boyfriend.
Seeing Jacques move never fails to take his breath away, as cheesy as that sounds (and Stephanie’s said so millions of times). But seeing him move on the ice is a whole different level of wonder that usually leaves Ryan breathless and itching to kiss him.
Jacques hasn’t noticed him standing by the edge of the frozen lake yet. His blond hair shines like a beacon as he skates from one end to the other, indulging in several leaps and pirouettes that Ryan knows for a fact is going to be murder on his hurt ankle, but Jacques doesn’t seem to care. Or maybe he does but he’s trying to hide it—Jacques is an ace at hiding shit that should not be hidden. Injuries, hurt feelings, insecurities, the like.
Nonetheless, seeing him in the flesh releases a great weight from Ryan’s chest. The upset and worry are still there and he still wants to chew Jacques out for trying to give himself frostbite, but the urge to kill him has gone down to a degree.
Despite the cold and the main reason he came out in the first place, a large part of Ryan is content to wait for Jacques to notice him first. It’s much more satisfying than calling out. So he crosses his arms and waits, leaning a shoulder against the drooping bare-branched tree beside him.
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait for long. In the middle of what looks like a complicated spin, Jacques's eyes meet his.
“You’re one crazy shit,” is Ryan’s version of a loving greeting when Jacques skates within earshot. Can you blame him though?
Jacques spreads his arms. He’s not even wearing mittens or a hat— just a simple jacket over his practice outfit. Oh, Ryan is so pissed.
“Don’t deny you were admiring me from afar,” he winks. “Come now, I was lovely out there, no?”
“Your lips are blue,” says Ryan.
Indeed, Jacques's lips have a bluish tinge to them, and he keeps scrunching his nose as though to stave away the numbness. Other than those smaller notices, to any other onlooker who doesn’t know Jacques Aubert so well, the man looks as determined, arrogant, and poised as he normally exudes.
But Ryan is one of those few who know him in and out (he hopes, though with Jacques he can never be too sure) so his eyes pick up on even tinier details; the consistent tick developing in Jacques's right eye; the very faint shivers that one might chalk up to the wind listing him. Most worrisome, is the way he favors his uninjured foot, ever so slightly.
Sensing the direction Ryan’s look-over is going, Jacques interrupts with a blinding smile that flashes white in the dark. “I’m fine, Ryan, don’t worry.”
In response, Ryan unravels his snug scarf and loops it around Jacques’s neck. The pulse there is fluttering and the skin is ice-cold.
“I’m fine,” Jacques repeats. Though he doesn’t try to remove the scarf. Or Ryan’s hands lingering by his throat.
“How many times are you going to say that until you start believing it? Because I sure as hell don’t.”
Jacques doesn’t reply. He just stands there in his skates, hands clenched and by his sides, chin up stubbornly, and Ryan wants to shove him or kiss him. Either one would work because then he could bring some warmth to Jacques.
And he’s so upset. Annoyed. Properly ticked off. And worried, he’s been so worried.
But, of course, Jacques won’t give a shit about that. He’ll laugh it off, say he’s being all worried for no reason, apologize, and do the exact same thing again. Like when he’d tried to do acrobatics on a broken pole; when he’d fallen and refused to get bandaged even with his bloody nose and continued to skate until fucking Josee had forced him to get some medical attention because he was leaving blood splatters on the ice. And let’s not forget when he would’ve fought with a rival team because they called him a “weak pretty boy”; Ryan still can’t figure out what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there to drag Jacques away.
“I’m pretty, but I’m not weak,” he’d seethed in the car, all frenzied and spiteful.
Weak. That’s Jacques’s breaking point. While he’s less overbearing than Josee (thank god for that, Ryan really doesn’t want or need another Stephanie), that one word is enough to derail him. Being considered weak, being a hindrance to glory ( the gold, in Jacques's words). The thought alone is motivation enough to get him up and moving, regardless of circumstance. It’s like a warped math equation: training equals perfection which equals strength (in other words not being weak).
Like working his ass off in the freezing cold with an injured ankle.
Jacques still isn’t saying anything, stubbornly letting the moment drag, and Ryan sighs, conceding first.
“Come on, it’s freezing as balls out here,” he says, and it’s wild how he’d been so wired before but now he’s drained and just wants to curl up on the couch with his boyfriend, bantering about which Olympic sport is the best.
Jacques doesn’t move.
“You’re going to get sick, Jaq. Come back to my place, we’ll get you warm.”
“A couple more minutes,” Jacques murmurs. He stares out at the frozen lake, skates scraping against the ice as he shifts. “I just need to perfect this one move—“
Just like that, Ryan’s wavering string of emotions snaps.
“You’re hurt, Jacques! Or did you forget about that little tidbit? It’s fucking freezing and it’s snowing, and you’re out here like fucking Superman and for what? To get better? At what? For what? You’re supposed to be resting! Even Josee told me to get your arse back—“
“You told Josee?” Jacques’s face contorts into despair and horror. “No, no! Why did you tell her? You ruined everything! She wasn’t supposed to know, I was trying to—“
He stumbles as he moves forward, whether it’s due to the skates or his ankle, Ryan can’t be sure, but he steadies Jacques all the same.
“Stupid ankle!” Jacques shouts, the words ripped into the air, torn apart almost immediately by the snow and wind. That doesn’t stop Ryan’s heart from hurting as Jacques kicks at the frozen lake and almost tips over. “Stupid, stupid! Everything is stupid! Ugh!”
The words fall over themselves, either from cold or Jacques’s own fumbling emotions. He continues to shout, mixing in French and English, face twisted, hopping on one foot, and it’s one of the hardest things Ryan’s ever done but he doesn’t move a muscle; he lets Jacques do his thing, let it out. Until finally, he’s standing hunched over on the ice, silent, shoulders rising and falling rapidly.
Deeming it safe to do so, Ryan gently touches his shoulder. “Hey.”
Jacques' voice is muffled. “Hello.”
“You know deep down that this is a stupid idea. How’re you going to get better if you don’t let yourself heal first?”
Jacques says nothing.
“You’re hurt, Jaq,” Ryan says again, with more feeling. “Let yourself be taken care of for once. Then you can go dominate the rink.”
A rattling breath leaves Jacques.
“I’m fine,” he mumbles, like a mantra that if he says long enough might come true. His voice shakes a little, his breaths shiver. “I’m fine.”
Scratch that, this is the hardest thing Ryan’s ever done; but, like it or not, Jacques needs to hear it. “No, you’re not.”
Jacques looks up. His vivid heterochromatic eyes meet Ryan’s dark ones; they’re determined and vigorous yet subtly glassy, faraway.
“But I am fine. I have to be!”
Ryan takes off his hat, puts it snug on Jacques’s head. His hands cup his face as they move down. “No, babe. You’re really not. And that’s okay.”
Jacques blinks. “It’s…okay?”
“Yeah, sweets. It’s okay to not be fine sometimes.”
“But—“
“It’s okay.”
He holds Ryan’s gaze for a long moment, unblinking, processing what’s being said.
Then he slumps.
Quickly, Ryan hoists him upright and guides him off the ice, Jacques’s skates dragging through the snow as they meander toward the bench by the lake.
The air is cold, and the wood of the bench is frozen, but Jacques doesn’t seem to notice as Ryan guides him to sit on it, and kneels in front of him; the cold snow seeps into his pants, but he can’t give a damn right now.
Jacques, for his part, appears to sense the cold now. He grabs at his elbows, curling into himself, although his eyes remain narrowed and fixed at a random point on the half-covered sidewalk. Ryan knows he must be so mad at himself for breaking down like this.
In reassurance—because going down that train of thought is never a good idea—Ryan places one hand on Jacques’s knee, and the other atop his clenched fist, slowly unfurling it, transferring his warmth.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. The snow rips his words away, but Jacques hears.
He twitches minutely in response.
“You’re hurt,” Ryan continues. “It happens to the best of us—to all of us. We get hurt, we need rest, but in the end, we get up and we do better. But you can’t do the last two parts if you don’t do the resting part, babe. You’re strong, hell yeah you are, but sometimes strength isn’t working yourself to the extreme. Sometimes strength is letting yourself rest. Because you deserve to.”
Jacques mumbles something unintelligible.
Ryan leans closer. “What?”
Jacques’s eyes flicker, the only sign of his distress is the clenching and unclenching of his hand beneath Ryan’s mittened one, but Ryan isn’t letting go. He needs Jacques to understand this one time. Before he goes off again and hurts himself under the assumption that not being weak equals not giving himself a break.
“I wasn’t supposed to get hurt,” he says in the barest whisper.
Ryan tilts his head.
“I’m a professional, I’m in the Olympics for god's sake, I don’t get stopped by an injury,” his voice rises as he speaks. “I already messed up once when I dropped Josee like a fucking idiot and lost gold, and now I messed up again because I couldn’t do a simple twist, and honestly it astounds me how Josee still keeps me around. I always fall short. I need to train because I have to do things correctly so that we’ll get that gold and—and I won’t be weak and Josee won’t shun me for being a mauviette.”
Now, Ryan only knows a bit of French—though he’s been learning because there’s no way he’s going to let Jacques talk crap in French about anything without him knowing—but he gets the gist enough to translate the self-deprecating insults.
And that simultaneously makes his blood boil and leaves him trepidatory like he’s on a ledge and just now realizing how deep the gorge is below.
Because this is all still very new for him, for them. They’ve been together for less than six months, though Ryan knows the depth of feeling he has for Jacques extends far beyond surface-level affection. If you ask him, there’s no other comparison he can think of except the ocean; on the surface, it’s calm and serene, poised; but underneath lies tumultuous waves of ambition and emotion, a sense of deadly danger that only breaks the surface during specific circumstances. That is Jacques.
It’s no secret his biggest flaw—fatal flaw if you will—is hubris. Jaques knows his limits, for others. For himself is a completely different story.
Now it’s up to Ryan to dive into those waters. Luckily, he’s never been afraid of the ocean.
“Do you know how many professionals get hurt—not because they suck, but because they’re good at what they do? A lot, Jacques, a lot of them do. It’s in the requirements to being in this field, you gotta get hurt sometimes, and that experience leaves you stronger than before.”
“It does?”
The skepticism is clear in the question.
Ryan nods. “Oh yeah. I’ve seen a lot of people in the gym get pulled muscles and strained biceps—even sprained ankles and broken arms. They complained often that it sucked to hear they got to rest but they did. And when they came back, they lifted that heavy weight or ran that maximum speed or did whatever it was that stopped them before.”
Jacques is watching him now, eyes still narrowed but the tension is melting slowly from his shoulders, and he looks like he’s considering Ryan’s words. At least Ryan hopes he is.
“I’ll still do good,” he decides. “I always do. But you’re right. I suppose I can handle some rest.”
Ryan relaxes and almost laughs aloud because of course, that’s what Jacques thinks first. “Forget good, you’ll do better, trust me.”
A little bit of the old arrogance creeps back in as Jacques says “Of course I will.”
Ryan shakes his head, smiling. “You ready to head back now? Or do you want to wait until you turn into an icicle?”
“I’ll make a splendid icicle,” Jacques says, offended.
Ryan hefts him up in his arms because there’s no way he’s letting Jacques hobble all the way back. “No doubt,” he says, holding him close bridal-style both for warmth and because he seriously wants to. “But I can’t snog an icicle senseless for making me worry so I prefer the unfrozen you.”
Shockingly, Jacques doesn’t have a fast retort for that. Ryan chalks it up to potential frostbite addling the brain and quickens his pace.
“I’m sorry.”
Ryan almost slips. “I—what?”
He must’ve been hearing things because there’s no way he just heard Jacques apologizing.
Jacques looks so out of his element but his eyes meet Ryan’s determinedly.
Not for the first time, Ryan thinks it looks hot.
“You don’t ruin everything. You make everything better.”
“I—“ What’s he supposed to be doing right now? Walking, isn’t he? But his feet don’t move, he gapes at Jacques who’s smirking at his reaction although his eyes are truly sincere. “You’re shitting me right now. You pick now while we’re freezing our arses off to be all sentimental?”
Jacques shrugs, his shoulder brushes Ryan’s chest as he moves. “I wanted to tell you it. I can be a…bit of a mess, but you still stick with me.”
Because I love you, idiot!
He holds himself back from saying it only barely. Instead, he grins; the cold gone, replaced with a giddy warmth. “I make everything better?”
Jacques pokes his cheek. “Do not get a big head about it.”
“Says the actual bighead.”
“Oi!” But whatever indignant response Jacques was going to say next is swallowed up by Ryan leaning down and kissing him.
Everything is warm and fuzzy. Jacques tastes like strawberries and Ryan can smell traces of his cologne, mingling with his own. Arms wind around his neck, tightening, and Ryan doesn’t want to stop, can’t seem to stop.
I love you I love you I love you. The admission reverberates in his head. Strains to get out. He can’t hold it in anymore.
“I love you,” he whispers into the kiss. “So for the love of god, please stop doing shit like this because it’s fucking painful to see.”
Jacques leans back, surprise then hesitation flickering in his blue and brown eyes.
It hits Ryan that he’d just said those ‘dreaded three words’ to Jacques Aubert, a man who places ambition over everything else. So he waits, fingers twisting into Jacques’s jacket, expecting nothing yet hoping for everything.
The snow falls, the wind bites. Ryan’s heart pounds.
“Je t’aime aussi, Ryan,” Jacques whispers back. “I’ll try. I don’t know if—it will be difficult—but I’ll try.” He takes in a breath. “For you.”
Fuck the cold. They’ll probably be sick tomorrow, but who cares? Because Ryan knows enough French to understand what had just been said.
For a couple of seconds, Ryan ignores rationale, and swoops down for another kiss, hunching his shoulders to ward them temporarily from the frigid outdoors. He feels Jacques kiss him back, and just like that everything else melts. He's supposed to be freezing his balls off, and Jacques's lips are still frozen. But neither makes a move to pull away.
The snow continues to fall, the streetlights shine down on them, the wind brushes against them. All go by unnoticed. There's a warmth surrounding them, and in Ryan's chest and in his arms, that compensates for the ice-cold.