Chapter Text
As he skated to the centre of the rink, he could hear the commentators.
'Next up, we have Peter Grant of Great Britain. Grant placed sixth at the worlds back in 2013, securing an Olympic spot for Great Britain. But he’s struggled since, failing to qualify for the Grand Prix events this year, and just barely making it past the short program here in Boston. Inconsistency has been his downfall in the past. Let's hope he can do better on this stage with the eyes of the world - and the eyes of his nation - on him.'
The shouts of the crowd quieted, but the thumping of his heart was louder in the silence. He held his opening pose, and waited for the first notes of the programme to begin. It had been such a mistake to choose his father's music for his free skate. It was meant as tribute, but it only reminded him that he wasn't here to watch, had never seen him triumph…
But he could make it look fun, he could smile through his step sequence, and make it look easy.
'And here comes the first jump-'
- just get it over with, you've landed it a million times, you are not going to fail -
'a quadruple salchow, triple toe loop combination’ – damn -
‘oh but that angle, he tried to correct it but he over rotated and ouch that's a bad fall'
He knew he had to get up (he knew in real life, he had gotten up, had caught the beat of the music, had gotten through to the end somehow). But in the dream, he couldn't move. He lay on the cold ice, and the crowd started jeering. The commentary ran on, but this time, it was his mother's voice.
'…and what was it for, all those years, and all those hopes, for you to give up?
- PETER!'
He woke with a start, heart pounding, “Peter! It’s the afternoon, for goodness sake! Are you going to sleep all day?”
“I’ll be up soon, mum” he called back. He flopped back on the bed as reality washed over him.
He’d finished his programme, sure. He'd sat, stone-faced, in the kiss and cry, and his coaches hadn’t said a thing when the scores put him in last place. Encouragement, anger, anything would have been better than Coach Seawoll so disappointed him that he couldn’t speak.
He’d packed up from the competition hotel, and caught an uncomfortable red-eye home. When he'd landed, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of heading back to Nottingham the his tiny flat near uni and the rink, that he shared with his training mate Jaget Kumar. Instead, he slunk back to his childhood home with his tail between his legs, to hide in anonymous London until he could sort out what to do next. He ignored Jaget’s texts. He let the calls from Coach Stephanopoulos go to voicemail, and avoided the internet.
Even in his old bedroom, though, he couldn’t avoid thinking about skating. As a teenager, he’d covered the walls with posters and magazine covers of the skaters he’d idolized, none more than the last British Olympian, Thomas Nightingale. Everywhere he looked, he was met by The Nightingale’s grey eyes and wide smile. Here he was waving his medal from the podium at Nagano. There – partialy obscured by the piles of boxes his mum had put in his room after his father’s death - was the signed poster Peter's cousin had bought him for his 15th birthday, Nightingale in his signature men’s-wear-inspired costume from his ‘Gershwin’ program. The posters were embarrassing - he’d only taken one to his Nottingham flat, and mostly covered his walls there with pictures of his favorite buildings. Maybe it was time to take these down too. It was hardly inspiring to wallow in his despair with his hero’s eyes on him.
It had been less than two weeks since Worlds, but Peter knew he couldn’t wait much longer to decide his future. Coaching agreements, ice time, choreography for the next season…if he was going to go back to training, he’d need to face the music in Nottingham. Or he could throw it all in, and register for the master’s degree in architecture, and start his real career. Either way, he’d need to do something other than eat his mother’s jollof rice and play Call of Duty. He was 26 years old, and it was time he became an adult.
But maybe not quite yet.
Dodging his mum’s inquiries, he threw workout clothes and his skates into a bag, and caught the 393 bus up to Stoke Newington and over to the Lee Valley Ice Center. It'd been years since he'd spent much time skating here, but the smell was exactly the same he remembered from childhood, the combination of chemicals in the ice and greasy chips. Lessons were wrapping up, and he met Abigail coming off the ice, adjusting the bands that held her hair in place. She threw her arms around him.
'Welcome back, wizard.'
'Still giving ‘em hell?'
His cousin laughed. 'Oh, you know it. The kids get worse every year.'
'I seem to remember a little girl who thought three-turns were a waste of time, and were invented entirely to stop young skaters from doing more interesting things.'
She hit him in the arm – hard. 'Did you come to get on the ice?'
'If there’s still an empty spot now?'
'Oh yeah. I was going to keep going with my students, but we can easily stay out of your way.'
'Alright. I’m trying an experiment, and I wouldn’t want to corrupt their young minds too much.'
Peter queued up his music. He’d skated this routine in his mind a million times over the years, but never where any of his rinkmates could see and mock him. With this music, he could sink into a place of pure concentration, a zone that was so often elusive in his own programmes. As he waited, he let his spine straighten, his head cock, and at the first bars of the Rhapsody in Blue, he began to fly. The ice under his blades, the wind against his face, no pressure, no expectations. It was freedom.
Could he really let this go? Did he have any choice?
——
Thomas Nightingale usually struggled to remember why he’d joined twitter in the first place. It was full of people who thought harassing a retired figure skater was a great way to spend their time, not to mention people who got excited and spoiled the plots of shows that he was trying to catch up on. If Molly hadn’t set up his account for him, and then insisted on communicating with him that way, he’d leave it behind. Thomas would put up with much worse to make her happy. But he certainly hadn’t posted a public message in over a month. So why would Molly be messaging him to tell him his name was trending?
He sat down at the computer, and petted Toby’s head when the terrier whined. “We’ll go for a walk in just second, boy. Just got to see what nonsense the internet has come up with now.”
The YouTube link Molly had sent was labeled, “Look who’s skating The Nightingale’s classic programme”. The video was clearly shot on a camera phone, and the sound was inconsistent, but he could recognize the bars of Rhapsody in Blue. A man in track pants and a Doctor Who hoodie was skating his choreography, the video starting about 30 seconds in to the programme.
It took Thomas longer than it probably should have to recognize Peter Grant - black figure skaters being a rarity - but in his defense, he’d never seen Peter Grant skate like this. In his competition programmes, Grant was known for his explosive jumps and inventive spins (his technical innovation had made him the first skater to land a quad loop in competition, but it had also gotten whole jump passes invalidated by picky judges). Grant was too young for them to have shared the ice at competitions, but Thomas had enjoyed watching him on telly, even if he winced at his more exuberant failures. He’d thought it was a shame that Grant had always seemed to treat the rest of his programmes like a chore to get through, on the way to the exciting bits. But here, he was flowing through elements with classic form, casually landing jumps like an afterthought. He was danced through a step sequence almost flawlessly and led straight into a flying sit spin. It was fascinating. Grant wasn’t exactly mimicking Thomas’ own balletic skating, but he was skating in a way that was completely different from his competition style. Was it just that he was on a practice rink, without pressure?
Thomas played the video three times in a row. Then, when he couldn’t ignore the whining any more, he took Toby for a walk in Highbury Fields. Then he watched it again. And then he texted Molly:
Tell me EVERYTHING you know about Peter Grant.