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FIC SGA: Out Of Bounds - John/Rodney - NC-17
You can get caught up here: Out Of Bounds.
Title: Out Of Bounds
Author: Icarus
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Rodney
Summary: "I said you could take a break, not a vacation."
A/N: Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
perfica for playing OOB beta badminton with me, amothea for listening to me whine, teaphile for her birds eye view. Our special guest star beta is sarka with her sparkling knowledge of Czechoslovakian cold war politics. Thank you, sarka. And, yes, I know there are no 1986 Olympics. ;)
[Previous][Next]
Out Of Bounds
by Icarus
"Welcome back to the 1986 Winter Olympics. We've been talking to Stevie Owens, this year's downhill bronze medalist. So, Stevie, regarding our question in the first segment, what's it like in between events? Do our athletes usually stay in the Olympic village for the duration?"
"Either that or wherever you're training. A lot of the other skiers like to stay away from the Olympic village -- they complain about the food or say the press is around too much. Me, I'm training all the time so it doesn't matter."
"And the food?"
"Ha! Okay, you got me there. I bring in some of my own. I miss pizza back in the good ol' U. S. of A."
"It's unusual then to leave the grounds during the Olympics?"
"Oh, yeah, I heard about McKay. I don't know about figure skaters myself, but for downhill, no, no way, there's just no time. I can see Europe after the Olympics."
"And get pizza?"
"You bet. They got pizza in Italy, right?"
~*~*~
"Go, go, go!" Rodney yelled. "You say you train so hard, but I'm not seeing any life out there! When we finally hear from the figure skating committee, you're going to be ready despite yourself."
John swept by, turned and stroked backward, arms out, shoulders tight, his lips pressed together as he eked out more speed, digging into the ice hard.
"You're not on a Merry-Go-Round – this should be fast!"
John flowed into the pause to set up his jump, shoulders squared, then threw himself into the toe loop, landing on the other foot.
"Yes!" Rodney called out, following behind him with two sharp strokes. "Much smoother. That transition was like glass. We should've been working on your speed all along."
John put his hands on his hips and breathed, looking up at the ceiling with a relieved smile.
"What are you doing?" Rodney squawked, straightening, arms spread and palms up in a question. "Don't stop. Did I say stop?" He made an emphatic wide spiraling gesture, finger in the air. "Keep going! That's a very bad habit of yours. Think of a river: does it ever pause? There should be no breaks in your program."
Eyes sharp and focused, dead serious, John restarted his circuit.
~*~*~
John stretched his feet luxuriously, rolling onto his back. He slung an arm behind his head, his eyes mostly closed. Faint light from the street lamp outside John's kitchen window traced a bluish sheen across his skin and cast a square door-shaped pattern on the hardwood floor. Rodney lay on his side, pressed against the wall, squeezed into a corner of John's double futon. He was certain "double" really meant that it was designed for small children – if that – rather than two full-grown men.
He couldn't get used to how empty John's place felt, as though he'd just moved in. Maybe it was because John just didn't own very much. There was a hollow echo as John got up and walked naked to the kitchen, scratching the back of his head, footsteps scuffing.
"You want anything?" John offered, turning back, hand still on the back of his head.
The sheet draped across his lap, Rodney would never be that relaxed in the nude, but then again, he'd never look like that either.
"Anything in particular?" Rodney asked doubtfully. John's fridge was a study in Buddhist emptiness.
John disappeared into the kitchen. There was the rattle of bottles as the refrigerator door opened. "I dunno. A beer?" he called out.
"You're allowed to have that?"
John returned, twisting the bottle cap off as he stood in the doorway. "Well. Now that I'm off the meds, sure."
"You are?"
John sat down on the bed and handed Rodney his beer. He took a long draw from his own and sighed. "Yeah." His eyes sharpened, waking up a little. They flicked to the side. "I didn't tell you that?"
"Since when?"
John pursed his lips. "Couple weeks ago."
"And you didn't bother to tell me?"
"I was busy." John cringed, having the grace to look remorseful as he lay back down, slipping under the covers.
"When were you going to say something? We could have been working on your jumps last week." Rodney took a long sip from his own beer, dipping his head as he swallowed. He gestured with the bottle. "From here on out, you are to keep me informed of any and all health issues related to your skating -- and I can't believe I even have to explain this to you," he added, muttering to himself.
"Kind of like everything's supposed to be on a schedule now?"
There was a faint glimmer of amusement in John's sleepy, slitted eyes. He rubbed his feet together under the sheet, a slip-slide shifting sound of cotton.
"Well obviously this was not on the agenda."
"It was on mine." John snickered, taking another pull of his beer, and Rodney was close enough to feel his chest rumble with laughter. His skin was sticky with sweat and they still smelled like sex. He held up his beer and clinked the bottle against Rodney's.
"What time is it anyway?" Rodney cringed even as he asked.
Blinking himself a little more awake, John reached for his watch on the nightstand, picked it up and squinted. "One a.m."
"Oh, no...."
"Let's try to get some sleep," John said. He rolled to his side, up on one elbow to set his beer on the floor – Rodney imagined that would probably be knocked over in the morning – and then reached back for Rodney's, fingers wiggling. Rodney took a quick deep swallow and handed it over. Tugging at the covers, John pulled them over his shoulder and Rodney tucked in around behind him, arm awkwardly draped over John's waist.
They were quiet a long moment, their breathing shallow, still not sleeping.
Then Rodney complained, "Is that light always so bright?"
"Yes, Rodney," came John's mumble from the pillow.
Rodney tried to roll to his other side, and found himself squashed face first into the wall. He turned back around towards John.
"You sure you didn't shrink this bed in the wash? Cotton batting does shrink, you know."
"Good night, Rodney." John groaned.
~*~*~
"Czechoslovakian ski jumper, Jiri Zelenka, in third place after his initial jump, has withdrawn from the competition due to an injury incurred while skateboarding."
"That's good news for the Soviets."
"You know that Glasnost has arrived when an eastern bloc skier injures himself skateboarding."
~*~*~
Rodney rapped out a staccato on the bench, flicking a glance up at the clock on the rink wall behind him. He checked his watch as if it would tell him something different, stood and walked partway up the aisle, then returned.
The double door into the rink opened and John entered, his face alight, eyes looking past Rodney in a kind of happy wonder.
"I said you could take a break, not a vacation." Rodney scowled, tapping his watch for emphasis.
"Thought I'd make a little phone call," John said, tipping his head nonchalantly. Then he broke into a slow spreading smile, unable to contain himself. "Heard from the U.S. Figure Skating Association."
Rodney's eyebrows raised. "And-?" His hand spun impatiently at John's excruciating, slow unspooling of information. It was one of his more annoying traits.
"Seems like they're having some sort of competition in Colorado." John's smile had turned to a grin. "Think we should go?"
Rodney rubbed his hands together. "Oh, I'll have to check my schedule."
"Let me know when you decide." John licked his lips, chuckling as he stepped out onto the ice. He bobbed his head, still grinning. "We're going to the America Cup."
~*~*~
"Canadian figure skating champion, Rodney McKay, struggled with his triple Lutz in his warm-up today, falling twice. Linda, what's going on with McKay?"
"It's very common to have a bad practice before a major competition. In fact, I consider it a good sign, working out those early jitters. You want to peak at the competition, not right before. I always did better when my last practice didn't go well: it motivated me to do my best."
~*~*~
On auto-pilot, John woke at three a.m. His bedroom was still dark, the thrumming quiet filled with anticipation. Outside a dog barked and John heard the street cleaners whir by, a steady grinding hum, just like every other morning.
But today there was no point in taking a shower yet. Rodney had called off their practice, and tomorrow they were scheduled for a 10 a.m. flight. The tickets had already arrived via overnight express. The America Cup committee had been annoyed that they had to pay thirty-five dollars because John didn't have a computer to print out an online ticket, and stunned he didn't even have an email address, but they'd made do, though not without telling him how to sign up for a free email that he'd never check.
Outside, moving down in the hallway, John heard the measured footsteps of his neighbor, the union guy, going to work. Then his quicker steps on the front stairs and squeak of the main doors as they shut behind him.
Right about now John would normally be toweling off his wet hair and grabbing some toast, maybe some eggs if he had time, before throwing on workout clothes and heading out to pick up Rodney.
John shut his eyes to try to sleep in, but it was like Christmas morning when he and his brother would end up whispering until 5 a.m., hovering at the top of the stairs to peek illegally at the stacks of presents that had appeared magically overnight.
He gave in, and got up to take go jogging to get this energy out of his system, running his hands over his eyes with a sniff. He clicked on the overhead and hunted for reasonably clean sweats -- until he remembered that a run was strictly off-limits, too. Damn. The prospect of an entire day with nothing to do stretched out interminably before him.
With a sigh, John took a long shower, apologizing in his mind to the other tenants for using all the hot water.
A warm stripe of dawn slowly stained the sky pink as, towel wrapped around his waist, John forced himself to take the time to make an omelet with wilted chives, caramelizing the onions in a separate frying pan. He sat down at the kitchen table – normally he ate breakfast standing – and looked out the kitchen window at a time of day he didn't usually see, since he was supposed to be at the rink by now. Three or four kids, their breath steaming in golden morning, took a shortcut over the neighbor's lawn and jumped the fence to the road. A car sputtered, then started up in the driveway just past them. The sense of being late, of not being where he was supposed to be, itched under his skin.
John grabbed his plate and washed the dishes, then leaned his hand on the cupboard, head down, chewing his lip as he tried to think what else to do. The free weights came to mind and were discarded. Stretches were probably okay.
Laundry.
John had meant to save laundry for later, but he could get that started and then do stretches for forty-five minutes or so. Maybe an hour. Nothing wrong with doing stretches for an hour.
~*~*~
The laundry was draped on hangers off the kitchen curtain rod and across the kitchen chairs to dry. He had the second load in the tub and had stripped the sheets off the bed. Rodney was just being anal in insisting on only one load.
He had graduated to handstands next to the bed, but he'd been good: he caught himself right before he moved into pushups out of sheer habit.
It wasn't until 10 o'clock that John remembered the existence of television. ESPN had a ping-pong tournament. John couldn't see the point of watching a sport where you couldn't see the ball. It was translated from Chinese and every game point had to be shown in slow motion afterward. He changed channels, stretched out on his bare mattress. CTV was showing a marathon of "Upstairs/Downstairs," a show John could never follow. What was with the Canadian obsession with an upper crust they were lucky not to have? He clicked through cooking shows and game shows and an early soap opera before he gave up and turned it off. He prowled his apartment, running his hands through his hair until it stuck up.
He needed to get out.
He put on a warm coat, hat, and sneakers, and went for a walk. There was nothing wrong with walking. Even if he felt like an old man, forcing himself not to run.
Outside on the concrete sidewalk, hands tucked in his pockets, John nodded to a big guy with a mustache in a hunter's orange scarf who was being pulled along in a stumble behind a huge black Labrador retriever. The guy nodded back, preoccupied with his dog. The sky was bright, slate-gray, the kind of day where you had to squint even if you never saw the sun. The trees stretched bare branches over the street. John reached the end of his block and turned onto the main drag. He passed little shops, a listless hair salon, a used bookstore with a sleeping cat stretched out in the window, a tea shop, and other stores he'd never noticed, and still didn't care about now. He backed up and tapped on the window of the bookstore to get the cat's attention. He liked animals. Then noticed the sign that begged, "Please don't tap on the window."
He almost stopped in the bakery before he realized he hadn't thought to bring his wallet. Cars swept up and down the street. John wondered what other people did with their time if they didn't skate.
John returned to an empty apartment that smelled like laundry soap and was more chaotic and messy than he was used to, laundry everywhere, sheets torn off and bundled at the end of the bed, the video box pulled out from when John had decided it would be torture to watch them today.
He'd made it to lunch. But he couldn't deal with his place like this, so he tidied up first, did a fourth load of laundry with the sheets, then used up the last of the greens for lunch so they wouldn't go bad.
Which reminded him he was going to be competing in less than forty-eight hours. His heart pounded; the nerves were starting early this time.
Fletcher wasn't going to be there, so if he could take Kulka on the technical scores, maybe... John clenched his fist and stopped that line of thought. The last thing he needed was to think about the other skaters. He had to stay focused on his own game.
It took him less than half an hour to pack.
The answering machine had no messages except the one from U.S. Figure Skating, which he didn't know why he'd kept since it made his breath turn shallow. John had gotten out of the habit of calling his parents about his competitions. It opened too much of a can of worms and he didn't need a discussion about his "future" right before he was going to be skating in front of several thousand people.
John leaned over his answering machine on the floor next to the bed which blinked red, one message, looked around his spotless apartment, noticed the inline skates propped up next to his bike, and said, "Fuck it."
He had the inline skates laced up in seconds. He'd take it easy.
~*~*~
Late afternoon, the sun had finally decided to show itself, bright golden streaks painted on the side of John's face. He lazily turned on the back edge of the inline skates, toes up. It wasn't as easy as skating, inlines wanted to go forward, but he could get one to one and a half revolutions out of them, catching himself with his other skate.
He restricted himself to his own block to avoid the temptation of speed.
Instead, he skated down the apartment walkway and jumped the single step at the gate, turning sharply right before he hit a row of parked cars. He lost track of time, absorbed in perfecting his technique.
He tried again, with just a little more lift this time, swinging his arms right as he hit the step. He landed way too far out, turned in midair and slammed his hip into a car. The car alarm started squawking, headlights flashing, the whine and wail of the siren drawing all eyes up and down the street. A woman with dark carefully curled hair glared at him from a third floor window. John gave a sheepish little wave and coughed into his fist as he slipped away.
He needed a spot that didn't have a damned obstacle course at the end.
He started with jumping the three steps by the front door of the apartment, grabbing the rail as he usually did to propel himself forward. He had the full walkway to finish out his momentum. Then he worked on getting his skates up on the rail and sliding down. On the third try he missed the walkway completely and had to roll into the soft grass. But he'd almost made it. He just needed to extend his left foot more to control his balance.
The fourth try he had to abort. He grabbed the rail and swung himself up and over onto the grass.
The fifth he promised that he'd hold onto. He jumped and knew immediately he'd fucked up as the skate slid out, clutching at the rail as it cracked his chest and his knee went down and hit the steps.
Breathless, he stayed where he was for a moment, his leg ringing like a bell -- not painful yet, oh no -- and tried not to measure the depths of his stupidity.
Pushing himself up off the steps, he decided to call it a day. And thought it was a good thing he still had some of his meds on hand.
[Previous][Next]
Title: Out Of Bounds
Author: Icarus
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: John/Rodney
Summary: "I said you could take a break, not a vacation."
A/N: Thank you to
perfica for playing OOB beta badminton with me, amothea for listening to me whine, teaphile for her birds eye view. Our special guest star beta is sarka with her sparkling knowledge of Czechoslovakian cold war politics. Thank you, sarka. And, yes, I know there are no 1986 Olympics. ;)Previously in Out Of Bounds: Known more for his jumps than his artistry, figure skater John Sheppard hired ex-skating champion and 'artiste' Rodney McKay to be his coach. At the 1986 Olympics, Rodney had befriended a young Czech ski jump judge and began a quiet affair. His attempt to show Radek the world outside the iron curtain backfired, however. Meanwhile, in the present, after John gave up on making it to the America Cup this season, their teasing friendship developed into much more. Now it appears John might be able to compete after all. Of course, Rodney thinks John has followed his directions.
[Previous][Next]
Out Of Bounds
by Icarus
"Welcome back to the 1986 Winter Olympics. We've been talking to Stevie Owens, this year's downhill bronze medalist. So, Stevie, regarding our question in the first segment, what's it like in between events? Do our athletes usually stay in the Olympic village for the duration?"
"Either that or wherever you're training. A lot of the other skiers like to stay away from the Olympic village -- they complain about the food or say the press is around too much. Me, I'm training all the time so it doesn't matter."
"And the food?"
"Ha! Okay, you got me there. I bring in some of my own. I miss pizza back in the good ol' U. S. of A."
"It's unusual then to leave the grounds during the Olympics?"
"Oh, yeah, I heard about McKay. I don't know about figure skaters myself, but for downhill, no, no way, there's just no time. I can see Europe after the Olympics."
"And get pizza?"
"You bet. They got pizza in Italy, right?"
"Go, go, go!" Rodney yelled. "You say you train so hard, but I'm not seeing any life out there! When we finally hear from the figure skating committee, you're going to be ready despite yourself."
John swept by, turned and stroked backward, arms out, shoulders tight, his lips pressed together as he eked out more speed, digging into the ice hard.
"You're not on a Merry-Go-Round – this should be fast!"
John flowed into the pause to set up his jump, shoulders squared, then threw himself into the toe loop, landing on the other foot.
"Yes!" Rodney called out, following behind him with two sharp strokes. "Much smoother. That transition was like glass. We should've been working on your speed all along."
John put his hands on his hips and breathed, looking up at the ceiling with a relieved smile.
"What are you doing?" Rodney squawked, straightening, arms spread and palms up in a question. "Don't stop. Did I say stop?" He made an emphatic wide spiraling gesture, finger in the air. "Keep going! That's a very bad habit of yours. Think of a river: does it ever pause? There should be no breaks in your program."
Eyes sharp and focused, dead serious, John restarted his circuit.
John stretched his feet luxuriously, rolling onto his back. He slung an arm behind his head, his eyes mostly closed. Faint light from the street lamp outside John's kitchen window traced a bluish sheen across his skin and cast a square door-shaped pattern on the hardwood floor. Rodney lay on his side, pressed against the wall, squeezed into a corner of John's double futon. He was certain "double" really meant that it was designed for small children – if that – rather than two full-grown men.
He couldn't get used to how empty John's place felt, as though he'd just moved in. Maybe it was because John just didn't own very much. There was a hollow echo as John got up and walked naked to the kitchen, scratching the back of his head, footsteps scuffing.
"You want anything?" John offered, turning back, hand still on the back of his head.
The sheet draped across his lap, Rodney would never be that relaxed in the nude, but then again, he'd never look like that either.
"Anything in particular?" Rodney asked doubtfully. John's fridge was a study in Buddhist emptiness.
John disappeared into the kitchen. There was the rattle of bottles as the refrigerator door opened. "I dunno. A beer?" he called out.
"You're allowed to have that?"
John returned, twisting the bottle cap off as he stood in the doorway. "Well. Now that I'm off the meds, sure."
"You are?"
John sat down on the bed and handed Rodney his beer. He took a long draw from his own and sighed. "Yeah." His eyes sharpened, waking up a little. They flicked to the side. "I didn't tell you that?"
"Since when?"
John pursed his lips. "Couple weeks ago."
"And you didn't bother to tell me?"
"I was busy." John cringed, having the grace to look remorseful as he lay back down, slipping under the covers.
"When were you going to say something? We could have been working on your jumps last week." Rodney took a long sip from his own beer, dipping his head as he swallowed. He gestured with the bottle. "From here on out, you are to keep me informed of any and all health issues related to your skating -- and I can't believe I even have to explain this to you," he added, muttering to himself.
"Kind of like everything's supposed to be on a schedule now?"
There was a faint glimmer of amusement in John's sleepy, slitted eyes. He rubbed his feet together under the sheet, a slip-slide shifting sound of cotton.
"Well obviously this was not on the agenda."
"It was on mine." John snickered, taking another pull of his beer, and Rodney was close enough to feel his chest rumble with laughter. His skin was sticky with sweat and they still smelled like sex. He held up his beer and clinked the bottle against Rodney's.
"What time is it anyway?" Rodney cringed even as he asked.
Blinking himself a little more awake, John reached for his watch on the nightstand, picked it up and squinted. "One a.m."
"Oh, no...."
"Let's try to get some sleep," John said. He rolled to his side, up on one elbow to set his beer on the floor – Rodney imagined that would probably be knocked over in the morning – and then reached back for Rodney's, fingers wiggling. Rodney took a quick deep swallow and handed it over. Tugging at the covers, John pulled them over his shoulder and Rodney tucked in around behind him, arm awkwardly draped over John's waist.
They were quiet a long moment, their breathing shallow, still not sleeping.
Then Rodney complained, "Is that light always so bright?"
"Yes, Rodney," came John's mumble from the pillow.
Rodney tried to roll to his other side, and found himself squashed face first into the wall. He turned back around towards John.
"You sure you didn't shrink this bed in the wash? Cotton batting does shrink, you know."
"Good night, Rodney." John groaned.
"Czechoslovakian ski jumper, Jiri Zelenka, in third place after his initial jump, has withdrawn from the competition due to an injury incurred while skateboarding."
"That's good news for the Soviets."
"You know that Glasnost has arrived when an eastern bloc skier injures himself skateboarding."
Rodney rapped out a staccato on the bench, flicking a glance up at the clock on the rink wall behind him. He checked his watch as if it would tell him something different, stood and walked partway up the aisle, then returned.
The double door into the rink opened and John entered, his face alight, eyes looking past Rodney in a kind of happy wonder.
"I said you could take a break, not a vacation." Rodney scowled, tapping his watch for emphasis.
"Thought I'd make a little phone call," John said, tipping his head nonchalantly. Then he broke into a slow spreading smile, unable to contain himself. "Heard from the U.S. Figure Skating Association."
Rodney's eyebrows raised. "And-?" His hand spun impatiently at John's excruciating, slow unspooling of information. It was one of his more annoying traits.
"Seems like they're having some sort of competition in Colorado." John's smile had turned to a grin. "Think we should go?"
Rodney rubbed his hands together. "Oh, I'll have to check my schedule."
"Let me know when you decide." John licked his lips, chuckling as he stepped out onto the ice. He bobbed his head, still grinning. "We're going to the America Cup."
"Canadian figure skating champion, Rodney McKay, struggled with his triple Lutz in his warm-up today, falling twice. Linda, what's going on with McKay?"
"It's very common to have a bad practice before a major competition. In fact, I consider it a good sign, working out those early jitters. You want to peak at the competition, not right before. I always did better when my last practice didn't go well: it motivated me to do my best."
On auto-pilot, John woke at three a.m. His bedroom was still dark, the thrumming quiet filled with anticipation. Outside a dog barked and John heard the street cleaners whir by, a steady grinding hum, just like every other morning.
But today there was no point in taking a shower yet. Rodney had called off their practice, and tomorrow they were scheduled for a 10 a.m. flight. The tickets had already arrived via overnight express. The America Cup committee had been annoyed that they had to pay thirty-five dollars because John didn't have a computer to print out an online ticket, and stunned he didn't even have an email address, but they'd made do, though not without telling him how to sign up for a free email that he'd never check.
Outside, moving down in the hallway, John heard the measured footsteps of his neighbor, the union guy, going to work. Then his quicker steps on the front stairs and squeak of the main doors as they shut behind him.
Right about now John would normally be toweling off his wet hair and grabbing some toast, maybe some eggs if he had time, before throwing on workout clothes and heading out to pick up Rodney.
John shut his eyes to try to sleep in, but it was like Christmas morning when he and his brother would end up whispering until 5 a.m., hovering at the top of the stairs to peek illegally at the stacks of presents that had appeared magically overnight.
He gave in, and got up to take go jogging to get this energy out of his system, running his hands over his eyes with a sniff. He clicked on the overhead and hunted for reasonably clean sweats -- until he remembered that a run was strictly off-limits, too. Damn. The prospect of an entire day with nothing to do stretched out interminably before him.
With a sigh, John took a long shower, apologizing in his mind to the other tenants for using all the hot water.
A warm stripe of dawn slowly stained the sky pink as, towel wrapped around his waist, John forced himself to take the time to make an omelet with wilted chives, caramelizing the onions in a separate frying pan. He sat down at the kitchen table – normally he ate breakfast standing – and looked out the kitchen window at a time of day he didn't usually see, since he was supposed to be at the rink by now. Three or four kids, their breath steaming in golden morning, took a shortcut over the neighbor's lawn and jumped the fence to the road. A car sputtered, then started up in the driveway just past them. The sense of being late, of not being where he was supposed to be, itched under his skin.
John grabbed his plate and washed the dishes, then leaned his hand on the cupboard, head down, chewing his lip as he tried to think what else to do. The free weights came to mind and were discarded. Stretches were probably okay.
Laundry.
John had meant to save laundry for later, but he could get that started and then do stretches for forty-five minutes or so. Maybe an hour. Nothing wrong with doing stretches for an hour.
The laundry was draped on hangers off the kitchen curtain rod and across the kitchen chairs to dry. He had the second load in the tub and had stripped the sheets off the bed. Rodney was just being anal in insisting on only one load.
He had graduated to handstands next to the bed, but he'd been good: he caught himself right before he moved into pushups out of sheer habit.
It wasn't until 10 o'clock that John remembered the existence of television. ESPN had a ping-pong tournament. John couldn't see the point of watching a sport where you couldn't see the ball. It was translated from Chinese and every game point had to be shown in slow motion afterward. He changed channels, stretched out on his bare mattress. CTV was showing a marathon of "Upstairs/Downstairs," a show John could never follow. What was with the Canadian obsession with an upper crust they were lucky not to have? He clicked through cooking shows and game shows and an early soap opera before he gave up and turned it off. He prowled his apartment, running his hands through his hair until it stuck up.
He needed to get out.
He put on a warm coat, hat, and sneakers, and went for a walk. There was nothing wrong with walking. Even if he felt like an old man, forcing himself not to run.
Outside on the concrete sidewalk, hands tucked in his pockets, John nodded to a big guy with a mustache in a hunter's orange scarf who was being pulled along in a stumble behind a huge black Labrador retriever. The guy nodded back, preoccupied with his dog. The sky was bright, slate-gray, the kind of day where you had to squint even if you never saw the sun. The trees stretched bare branches over the street. John reached the end of his block and turned onto the main drag. He passed little shops, a listless hair salon, a used bookstore with a sleeping cat stretched out in the window, a tea shop, and other stores he'd never noticed, and still didn't care about now. He backed up and tapped on the window of the bookstore to get the cat's attention. He liked animals. Then noticed the sign that begged, "Please don't tap on the window."
He almost stopped in the bakery before he realized he hadn't thought to bring his wallet. Cars swept up and down the street. John wondered what other people did with their time if they didn't skate.
John returned to an empty apartment that smelled like laundry soap and was more chaotic and messy than he was used to, laundry everywhere, sheets torn off and bundled at the end of the bed, the video box pulled out from when John had decided it would be torture to watch them today.
He'd made it to lunch. But he couldn't deal with his place like this, so he tidied up first, did a fourth load of laundry with the sheets, then used up the last of the greens for lunch so they wouldn't go bad.
Which reminded him he was going to be competing in less than forty-eight hours. His heart pounded; the nerves were starting early this time.
Fletcher wasn't going to be there, so if he could take Kulka on the technical scores, maybe... John clenched his fist and stopped that line of thought. The last thing he needed was to think about the other skaters. He had to stay focused on his own game.
It took him less than half an hour to pack.
The answering machine had no messages except the one from U.S. Figure Skating, which he didn't know why he'd kept since it made his breath turn shallow. John had gotten out of the habit of calling his parents about his competitions. It opened too much of a can of worms and he didn't need a discussion about his "future" right before he was going to be skating in front of several thousand people.
John leaned over his answering machine on the floor next to the bed which blinked red, one message, looked around his spotless apartment, noticed the inline skates propped up next to his bike, and said, "Fuck it."
He had the inline skates laced up in seconds. He'd take it easy.
Late afternoon, the sun had finally decided to show itself, bright golden streaks painted on the side of John's face. He lazily turned on the back edge of the inline skates, toes up. It wasn't as easy as skating, inlines wanted to go forward, but he could get one to one and a half revolutions out of them, catching himself with his other skate.
He restricted himself to his own block to avoid the temptation of speed.
Instead, he skated down the apartment walkway and jumped the single step at the gate, turning sharply right before he hit a row of parked cars. He lost track of time, absorbed in perfecting his technique.
He tried again, with just a little more lift this time, swinging his arms right as he hit the step. He landed way too far out, turned in midair and slammed his hip into a car. The car alarm started squawking, headlights flashing, the whine and wail of the siren drawing all eyes up and down the street. A woman with dark carefully curled hair glared at him from a third floor window. John gave a sheepish little wave and coughed into his fist as he slipped away.
He needed a spot that didn't have a damned obstacle course at the end.
He started with jumping the three steps by the front door of the apartment, grabbing the rail as he usually did to propel himself forward. He had the full walkway to finish out his momentum. Then he worked on getting his skates up on the rail and sliding down. On the third try he missed the walkway completely and had to roll into the soft grass. But he'd almost made it. He just needed to extend his left foot more to control his balance.
The fourth try he had to abort. He grabbed the rail and swung himself up and over onto the grass.
The fifth he promised that he'd hold onto. He jumped and knew immediately he'd fucked up as the skate slid out, clutching at the rail as it cracked his chest and his knee went down and hit the steps.
Breathless, he stayed where he was for a moment, his leg ringing like a bell -- not painful yet, oh no -- and tried not to measure the depths of his stupidity.
Pushing himself up off the steps, he decided to call it a day. And thought it was a good thing he still had some of his meds on hand.
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