Rumors and The Events that there by cause them
When it wasn't football season, Arthur liked watching the figure skaters. He liked watching them extend long legs into the air, gliding over freshly cleaned ice, their skates scraping out patterns in the gleaming white. Swirls where they spun. Long curving lines. Short sharp strokes. Floating gracefully over the ice in sow cows and toe loops and waltz jumps.
Arthur himself was basically inept at any sport that wasn't football, so watching the skaters glide and jump on the slippery surface was nothing short of amazing. The last time he had tried skating had been with his son on a school field trip. And after they both failed miserably, they swore off it. (At least until Alfred came crying to him that this little Canadian in his class could wipe the floor with anyone at hockey, so he wanted to learn too. The boy was such a sheep.)
He was distracted for a moment when he heard the familiar pushy shouts of paparazzi, cameras flashing, shouting questions. The person they crowded around made no attempt to answer them, instead smiled blindingly and left them standing at the edge of the rink as he stepped out onto the ice, already starting his warm up of backwards cross cuts, long arms extended for balance, blonde waves whipping back from his face at his speed. He took off with his arms held close to his chest, and landed gracefully on one foot after two full spins in the air, leg held up behind him.
The boys' skating lesson, the only reason Arthur was in the frigid ice rink in the first place, finished up around ten o'clock. By then, The blonde figure skater had already left the rink. Arthur sighed softly. He had been entranced by each move his made. Each curl of his ankles, twist and flick of his feet, each stress in his muscles through the fabric of his tights. He admitted to himself with the smallest blush that watching the skater so intensely was probably a little weird.
But then, everyone in the rink had been watching him.
"Daddy, Daddy, hurry up and get my skates off!" Alfred kicked his legs excitedly, sending small splashes of melting snow everywhere. Arthur sighed and smiled a little, bending down to untie the hockey skates. "So in hockey today, me and mattie were on the same team!" Alfred ignored his interjection of 'Mattie and I, Alfred. And for heaven sake's stop calling him that ridiculous name.', continuing to ramble loudly about how well they had done against their fellows. The door opened behind him, and he didn't bother to look at who else it was until he caught a flash of silvery tights at the corner of his vision. "oh my god! Dad! It's Francis Bonnefoy!"
"What?" Arthur turned to catch a glimpse of the skater he had been watching with such intensity as he sat down to undo his own skates, long fingers working blindingly fast. He smiled back at both of them, as though being pointed out in a change room happened all the time. Considering the crowd of paparazzi that had followed him before practice, it probably did.
"Wait till Mattie hears this, he's gonna be so jealous!" Alfred was nearly giddy with his excitement, bouncing around Francis with one hockey skate on and the other off, only part way out of his jersey. "Can I have your autograph, can I can I can I please?"
"Alfred!" Arthur admonished sharply, and tossed the other man an apologetic smile. Alfred pouted at him and mumbled his discontent. "Sorry about that. Now sit down here so I can finish you skate." Alfred huffed, an expression painfully like his father's, before doing as told, big blue eyes silently pleading with the skater for the autograph. Arthur himself blushed as he bent down, feeling the eyes of the other man bore into his back as he struggled with the hockey skate.
"Would you like some help?" he offered after a minute more of Arthur struggling, already changed into a pair of sweat pants and a long black jacket, slightly sweaty hair sticking to his face. Arthur shifted to the side a little as Francis bent down to help, fingers flying over the tight laces and impossible knots. Alfred was blessedly silent in all of this, probably nearly shocked into a coma that Francis Bonnefoy was undoing his skates.
Didn't he know that his own father was a famous footballer? Ungrateful little twit.
"Thank you." Arthur whispered as Francis pulled off the skate. The other smiled and nodded to him, drawing nearly uncomfortably close.
"Anything for someone as cute as yourself." he sat back up on the bench, taking a swig from his water bottle, eyes glinting with smug amusement as Arthur sputtered and blushed and hoped desperately that Alfred hadn't understood the implications of such a statement. How dare that impudent little - Arthur huffed, and helped Alfred get changed, packing his things away in the duffle bag.
The change room door was crowded with paparazzi that flashed away right as Arthur stepped out. He grabbed Alfred and pulled him back into the change room. Football season being over or not, the world cup was coming up, and Arthur was pretty good at his chosen career path.
"You'd better not go out that way." he told Francis as he passed him to go around back. "Their stalking you like wolves stalk deer." Francis laughed at that, standing to follow him out the back door of the rink, ice skates slung over his shoulder and looking like he didn't particularly mind the paparazzi in the first place.
The back door was just as busy as the front, and all around them paparazzi tossed questions to the ice skater.
"How do you feel now that Ivan Braginski is no longer your rival in men's skating?"
"Do you think any of the other challengers can measure up to you?"
"Are you going to follow Ivan into pair skating, if so, who is your chosen partner?"
"We all want to know, why do you have your arm around football player Arthur Kirkland?"
The entire crowd seemed to go wild at this question, and Arthur flushed with shame while Alfred seemed to glow with pride and Francis just sent charming smiles and winked in Arthur's direction, the hand Arthur almost hadn't notice Francis hand around his waist slipping to a more intimate position, driving the paparazzi crazy as the wildly snapped photos of this new, developing relationship, a tantalizing glimpse into the depraved lifestyle of Francis Bonnefoy and Arthur Kirkland.
Arthur felt like he could melt with shame. He'd only met the man twenty minutes ago!
"I'm thinking you and I should stick together for a little while." Francis said softly into Arthur's ear, brushing a kiss there that a careful viewer might have missed, making Arthur blush and die a little inside.
"You planned for this, didn't you?" he didn't even want to know what the skater was up to. But he only shrugged and gave him a secretive grin. Arthur would kill him. That would be tomorrow's headlines. Arthur Kirkland brutally murders possible lover Francis Bonnefoy. He would kill him.
Alfred, meanwhile, was nearly jumping up and down in excitement. Wait until Mattie found out. Not only had he met Francis Bonnefoy, his daddy was dating him!