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icarusHi guys. Ya miss me? Here comes more Out Of Bounds. That link jumps to the portion just before this part.
Out Of Bounds
By Icarus
Rodney had only stepped away from the ice to place a phone call. Mrs. Hurwitz shot him a dirty look as he hogged the main line, tapping his foot and rolling his eyes with a sigh as he sat on hold for what seemed like an hour.
He waved his cup of coffee, which was in all likelihood cold by now. "Look--Well, when will Sonja back from Brazil?" Mrs. Hurwitz's eyes widened at the mention of Brazil, probably picturing long distance charges, but Rodney ignored her. "No, that's not soon enough."
Rodney hung up without saying goodbye, grumbling to himself about incompetent assistants and inconvenient travel schedules. Before ice shows became so popular everyone he'd wanted had always been on tap and desperate for work in the off season. Now? Every top skater had a summer job at some cheesy ice circus.
Trampling down the stairs, Rodney resisted the urge to kick the doors to the rink open, but that was only because he happened to like the music playing. Someone had put on Tchaikovsky's Arabian Dance. He sighed, leaned on the edge of the boards and decided to give himself a second to finish his coffee. Surprisingly, there was only one person on the rink.
Pausing, Rodney lowered his cup slowly as he watched.
John was looking down, then swung his leg to carry himself in a circle, arms trailing. Quietly carving the ice.
He began backward into a slow circle. Used his edge to push off. Then followed the direction of the free foot, turning in subtle serpentine steps. He shifted his weight to the back skate and then circled his foot up, letting his shoulder lean deep into the turn, arm towards the ice as if anchoring him.
He lowered his head with the sweep of his arm, then did a quarter-turn into a backward glide. Looking over his shoulder as the wind rippled his loose T-shirt. He did only a small hop where the jump was meant to be.
John picked up speed and stretched into a leg extension at shoulder-height and held the tension of the song, maintaining position, arm smoothed along his side. With the oboe phrase he shifted, let the leg fall, cutting into the ice behind him as he turned, his back to the audience, head down in concentration on the last pensive note.
He blinked up, caught sight of Rodney and shook himself out of it. He glided to a stop, eyes glazed and starry-eyed in that way skaters had when they were really into the music. "Hey, Rodney," he breathed. "Didn't know you were there."
"Tchaikovsky," Rodney said, victorious, snapping his fingers and pointing at John. "Works every time."
John frowned at him. "It's the fish song."
"What?" Rodney squinted, puzzled.
"You know, from that movie? I saw it when I was a little kid."
Rodney shut his eyes as he understood and snorted. "Fantasia."
"Yeah, they had these fish...."
"That's the Nutcracker, John," Rodney said in disgust, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Whatever." John licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder like they were being watched. He'd been edgy all through their lesson, though Rodney couldn't fault his concentration. He'd rarely seen John so focused.
John cracked his knuckles, then rapped his fist into his palm. "So, uh. We done here for today?" John seemed to be holding his breath, watching Rodney with hopeful clear eyes.
"What? Well, I've got a few extra minutes before my next lesson, we can fit in a little more. I'd like to start to reworking your long program for next season -- you know it's a thing of horror, right? You and Brahms? Just say no," Rodney smirked with smug amusement. "Besides, Jessica's always late and a complete waste of my time -- so typical that the ones who can afford my services are the very ones who need a surgical talent implant."
John winced, sucking air through his teeth. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands and finally stuck them in his pockets. He dug at the ice with his toe pick. "Yeah, I, uh, you see -- I kinda got an appointment." He shrugged in apology.
"What could be more important than skating?" Rodney asked him, blank-faced.
"I gotta be there at three," John explained, just shy of whining as he glanced towards the door again. "And I'm gonna be late as it is."
"Okay," Rodney said, drawing the word out, mystified. But John was already edging off the ice, plucking his jacket from where it was draped over the side of the rink.
"But I'll see you in the morning, right?" John said, turning to Rodney with sudden intensity, determined and leaning close.
Rodney blinked rapidly, then frowned, mouth tipping down. "Yes, of course. I've never missed a lesson."
"Good, good," John said, as if to himself, as he bent to pull off his skates.
~*~*~
John took the wide steps to the Schmidt center two at a time, one skate bouncing against his back. He pushed through the glass doors to the front desk.
"I have a three o'clock skate time but I'm a little...."
She waved him off with impatience, pointing. "Take the elevator on the right."
Didn't quite answer his question, but okay. He avoided the eyes on the photo of Rodney, ducking underneath it. Then he gazed up at the numbers as the elevator descended, dinging as they passed each floor.
Moments later he was staring across acres of ice, his heart in his throat. Places like this looked like competitions to John. There were logos instead of hockey goal lines under his feet on the ice, which rumbled and hissed smoothly under his skates. The rink was a little busier than he was used to, but it wasn't like there wasn't room.
Rodney's ideas—to be honest, experiments—were all well and good for the long term, but he needed his usual training regime to prepare him for a competition. Working his arms, John rocketed around the ice, then set up himself up to start with single jumps. The easy stuff first, working in Rodney's transitional moves between jumps because those had helped.
With the singles landed comfortably, he moved up to double-single combinations, then triple-double combinations, increasing the level of difficulty exponentially. This worked for John, keeping him on a trajectory toward the quad.
The world narrowed to just the jumps, the tension in every line of his body gathered -- and then released like a coiled spring.
With a grunt he threw himself into a quad toe-loop. The landing leg was still a little wobbly but he held it.
For the sake of efficiency, then John broke his long program down into sections to get them down, technically. He did the flying leap into a sit spin, finding his center to stand up into fast spin, arms pulled in tight. A predictable combination but it looked good. He worked on getting the form exactly right on his camel, back leg extended perpendicular to the ice, and cursed himself as it traveled, wobbling off-center six inches across the ice.
John stopped himself and breathed. It felt almost... strange... to do a real workout. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was different. It went really fast though, for one thing. He put the strangeness out of his mind to concentrate on skating. Gathering speed he bent to the side and caught his back skate behind him, spinning like a top.
A half hour later, John took a breather, sliding to the boards to get some water. He slung a towel around his shoulder, feeling oddly alone, like he'd just stepped off a plane into another city. Everyone else here seemed to have two or three people with them, their coach, a choreographer, and some had a whole collection of people doing god knew what. John wiped his hair off his forehead – wet, it tended to stick up more – shoulders hunched as he gazed around, taking in the strange scenery.
A black and gray blur hissed by on the opposite side of the skating rink, as fast as a short track skater. He cleared the edge of the rink and whizzed by John, who vaguely remembered a gray distraction earlier while he'd been focused on his practice. At the far end the skater hit an impossibly high triple axel. And came out of it with the same blinding speed.
Eyes blinking, John tipped back his water to cover his confusion. He only knew one skater who hit the ice that hard after a jump.
On the next circuit John caught a glimpse of black hair and Asian features, the sixth ranked American skater. Yong Suk.
"What the hell is he doing here?" John wondered aloud.
One thing was for sure. He didn't look all that injured.
Why yes, there is music: Arabian Dance - the Nutcracker
Out Of Bounds
By Icarus
Rodney had only stepped away from the ice to place a phone call. Mrs. Hurwitz shot him a dirty look as he hogged the main line, tapping his foot and rolling his eyes with a sigh as he sat on hold for what seemed like an hour.
He waved his cup of coffee, which was in all likelihood cold by now. "Look--Well, when will Sonja back from Brazil?" Mrs. Hurwitz's eyes widened at the mention of Brazil, probably picturing long distance charges, but Rodney ignored her. "No, that's not soon enough."
Rodney hung up without saying goodbye, grumbling to himself about incompetent assistants and inconvenient travel schedules. Before ice shows became so popular everyone he'd wanted had always been on tap and desperate for work in the off season. Now? Every top skater had a summer job at some cheesy ice circus.
Trampling down the stairs, Rodney resisted the urge to kick the doors to the rink open, but that was only because he happened to like the music playing. Someone had put on Tchaikovsky's Arabian Dance. He sighed, leaned on the edge of the boards and decided to give himself a second to finish his coffee. Surprisingly, there was only one person on the rink.
Pausing, Rodney lowered his cup slowly as he watched.
John was looking down, then swung his leg to carry himself in a circle, arms trailing. Quietly carving the ice.
He began backward into a slow circle. Used his edge to push off. Then followed the direction of the free foot, turning in subtle serpentine steps. He shifted his weight to the back skate and then circled his foot up, letting his shoulder lean deep into the turn, arm towards the ice as if anchoring him.
He lowered his head with the sweep of his arm, then did a quarter-turn into a backward glide. Looking over his shoulder as the wind rippled his loose T-shirt. He did only a small hop where the jump was meant to be.
John picked up speed and stretched into a leg extension at shoulder-height and held the tension of the song, maintaining position, arm smoothed along his side. With the oboe phrase he shifted, let the leg fall, cutting into the ice behind him as he turned, his back to the audience, head down in concentration on the last pensive note.
He blinked up, caught sight of Rodney and shook himself out of it. He glided to a stop, eyes glazed and starry-eyed in that way skaters had when they were really into the music. "Hey, Rodney," he breathed. "Didn't know you were there."
"Tchaikovsky," Rodney said, victorious, snapping his fingers and pointing at John. "Works every time."
John frowned at him. "It's the fish song."
"What?" Rodney squinted, puzzled.
"You know, from that movie? I saw it when I was a little kid."
Rodney shut his eyes as he understood and snorted. "Fantasia."
"Yeah, they had these fish...."
"That's the Nutcracker, John," Rodney said in disgust, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Whatever." John licked his lips, glancing over his shoulder like they were being watched. He'd been edgy all through their lesson, though Rodney couldn't fault his concentration. He'd rarely seen John so focused.
John cracked his knuckles, then rapped his fist into his palm. "So, uh. We done here for today?" John seemed to be holding his breath, watching Rodney with hopeful clear eyes.
"What? Well, I've got a few extra minutes before my next lesson, we can fit in a little more. I'd like to start to reworking your long program for next season -- you know it's a thing of horror, right? You and Brahms? Just say no," Rodney smirked with smug amusement. "Besides, Jessica's always late and a complete waste of my time -- so typical that the ones who can afford my services are the very ones who need a surgical talent implant."
John winced, sucking air through his teeth. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands and finally stuck them in his pockets. He dug at the ice with his toe pick. "Yeah, I, uh, you see -- I kinda got an appointment." He shrugged in apology.
"What could be more important than skating?" Rodney asked him, blank-faced.
"I gotta be there at three," John explained, just shy of whining as he glanced towards the door again. "And I'm gonna be late as it is."
"Okay," Rodney said, drawing the word out, mystified. But John was already edging off the ice, plucking his jacket from where it was draped over the side of the rink.
"But I'll see you in the morning, right?" John said, turning to Rodney with sudden intensity, determined and leaning close.
Rodney blinked rapidly, then frowned, mouth tipping down. "Yes, of course. I've never missed a lesson."
"Good, good," John said, as if to himself, as he bent to pull off his skates.
~*~*~
John took the wide steps to the Schmidt center two at a time, one skate bouncing against his back. He pushed through the glass doors to the front desk.
"I have a three o'clock skate time but I'm a little...."
She waved him off with impatience, pointing. "Take the elevator on the right."
Didn't quite answer his question, but okay. He avoided the eyes on the photo of Rodney, ducking underneath it. Then he gazed up at the numbers as the elevator descended, dinging as they passed each floor.
Moments later he was staring across acres of ice, his heart in his throat. Places like this looked like competitions to John. There were logos instead of hockey goal lines under his feet on the ice, which rumbled and hissed smoothly under his skates. The rink was a little busier than he was used to, but it wasn't like there wasn't room.
Rodney's ideas—to be honest, experiments—were all well and good for the long term, but he needed his usual training regime to prepare him for a competition. Working his arms, John rocketed around the ice, then set up himself up to start with single jumps. The easy stuff first, working in Rodney's transitional moves between jumps because those had helped.
With the singles landed comfortably, he moved up to double-single combinations, then triple-double combinations, increasing the level of difficulty exponentially. This worked for John, keeping him on a trajectory toward the quad.
The world narrowed to just the jumps, the tension in every line of his body gathered -- and then released like a coiled spring.
With a grunt he threw himself into a quad toe-loop. The landing leg was still a little wobbly but he held it.
For the sake of efficiency, then John broke his long program down into sections to get them down, technically. He did the flying leap into a sit spin, finding his center to stand up into fast spin, arms pulled in tight. A predictable combination but it looked good. He worked on getting the form exactly right on his camel, back leg extended perpendicular to the ice, and cursed himself as it traveled, wobbling off-center six inches across the ice.
John stopped himself and breathed. It felt almost... strange... to do a real workout. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was different. It went really fast though, for one thing. He put the strangeness out of his mind to concentrate on skating. Gathering speed he bent to the side and caught his back skate behind him, spinning like a top.
A half hour later, John took a breather, sliding to the boards to get some water. He slung a towel around his shoulder, feeling oddly alone, like he'd just stepped off a plane into another city. Everyone else here seemed to have two or three people with them, their coach, a choreographer, and some had a whole collection of people doing god knew what. John wiped his hair off his forehead – wet, it tended to stick up more – shoulders hunched as he gazed around, taking in the strange scenery.
A black and gray blur hissed by on the opposite side of the skating rink, as fast as a short track skater. He cleared the edge of the rink and whizzed by John, who vaguely remembered a gray distraction earlier while he'd been focused on his practice. At the far end the skater hit an impossibly high triple axel. And came out of it with the same blinding speed.
Eyes blinking, John tipped back his water to cover his confusion. He only knew one skater who hit the ice that hard after a jump.
On the next circuit John caught a glimpse of black hair and Asian features, the sixth ranked American skater. Yong Suk.
"What the hell is he doing here?" John wondered aloud.
One thing was for sure. He didn't look all that injured.
Why yes, there is music: Arabian Dance - the Nutcracker
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Date: 2007-06-27 01:13 pm (UTC)Icarus